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Constable La Marr wondered if the slogan of the Mounted applied 
in case one had to deal with an insane native. 



NEVER FIRE FIRST 

A Canadian Northwest Mounted Story 

BY 

JAMES FRENCH DORRANCE 

CO-AUTHOR OP “GET YOUR MAN,” 

“GLORY RIDES THE range” 


Frontispiece by 
CHARLES DURANT 


NEW YORK 

THE MACAULAY COMPANY 



Copyright, 1924, 

By THE MACAULAY COMPANY 




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 




To 

JOHN WOODS DORRANCE 

FATHER AND FRIEND 















CONTENTS 


CHAPTHR PAGE 

I Chance of Morpheus.11 

II The Eskimo Way.19 

III Complication Astounding .... 27 

IV Best of Bad Business.36 

V Silver and Black.52 

VI Regard for the Law.60 

VII Wanted—An Eskimo Fox .... 67 

VIII The Hero Fugitive.78 

IX The Skein Tangles.86 

X Hard Knuckles.96 

XI The Scarlet Special.107 

XII Living Targets.115 

XIII His Montreal Promise.134 

XIV A Double-Barreled Case .... 142 

XV Under Suspicion.159 

XVI The “Widdy” in Gray.170 

XVII Richer than Gold.183 

XVIII A Cryptic Messenger.195 

XIX Into the Night.214 

XX Morning’s Maze.225 

vii 


















CONTENTS 


viii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXI The Closed Creek. 236 

XXII Figure of Speech. 244 

XXIII When Morning Came.259 

XXIV Tent-Told Tales . . .. 270 

XXV Clutch of the Breed. 279 

XXVI Boot and Booty. 291 

XXVII Bright with Promise. 301 









NEVER FIRE FIRST 
















NEVER FIRE FIRST 


CHAPTER I 

CHANCE OF MORPHEUS 

From the “dig-in” of the snow-bank where he 
had spent the blizzard night in comparative com¬ 
fort, Constable La Marr of the Royal Mounted 
looked out upon a full-grown day. The storm that 
had driven him to shelter had passed, or at least 
was taking a rest. For once he had overslept and 
where days, even in winter’s youth, are but seven 
hours long, the fault caused him chagrin. 

That a “Mountie” in close pursuit of a murder 
suspect should have made such a slip was discon¬ 
certing even to one so young as La Marr. He 
found little consolation in the fact that when he 
had enlisted in the Force he had not dreamed of 
an Arctic assignment, but had expected one of 
those gayly uniformed details in Montreal or 
Quebec. 


11 


12 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


His concern, if the news ever leaked out, was 
of the reaction upon his immediate superior, Staff- 
Sergeant Russell Seymour. But small chance of 
that leakage unless he himself weakened—or 
strengthened—and tested the adage that confession 
is good for the soul. Seymour, a grimly handsome 
wolf of the North in command of the detachment 
post at Armistice, was now two months absent on 
an irksome detail of snow patrol, one that should 
have fallen to the rookie constable, except for his 
inexperience. 

La Marr stamped out of the snow-hole that had 
sheltered him and restored circulation by vigorous 
gymnastics. Light as was his trail equipment, be¬ 
ing without sled or dogs, he had not suffered, hav¬ 
ing learned rapidly the first protective measures of 
the Arctic “cop.” 

He was about to make a belated breakfast from 
his emergency pack when his glance chanced 
toward the north and focused upon a furred 
figure headed down the snow ruff on a course that 
would bring him within easy reach. 

“Aye, not so bad!” he congratulated audibly. 
“I get me man by sleeping on his trail!” 




CHANCE OF MORPHEUS 


13 


He chuckled as he watched the snow-shoed 
Eskimo stumble directly toward the trap that was 
set for him by chance of Morpheus. 

Yet the young constable took no chances. 

A murder had been committed two days before 
at Armistice, almost within the shadow of the po¬ 
lice post. The crime seemed a particularly atro¬ 
cious one to him from the fact that a white man, 
a trader’s clerk, had been the victim. Any Eskimo 
who would go to such lengths was either desperate 
or insane. La Marr felt called upon to be very 
much on guard as he waited within the shelter of 
the snow-trap. 

He had not a doubt that the native approaching 
was his quarry, any more than he had of that 
quarry’s guilt. He wondered if the slogan of the 
Mounted applied in case one had to deal with an 
insane native. It would be easy—and providen¬ 
tially safe—to wing the oncomer, undoubtedly un¬ 
aware of the nearness of a Nemesis. 

But the training at the Regina school of police 
that a “Mountie” never fires first is strict and im¬ 
pressive. Constable La Marr could not take a pot 




14 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


shot even with the intent only to wound the floun- 
derer. 

Next moment surprise caught him—surprise that 
Avic, the red-handed culprit, was fighting his way 
back to camp. But wait, he’d have to revise that 
thought for this particular murder had been done 
in a peculiar native fashion that shed no blood. 
Anyhow, why should one so obviously guilty of 
killing a white man in a bronze man’s country be 
headed toward the police post from which he had 
made a clean get-away? 

No answer came to La Marr. He merely waited. 

The Eskimo floundered on. 

The constable’s concealment was neat enough in 
a country where all is white. It was better even 
than bush or shrub, for they were so rare as to be 
open to suspicion. At just the right second he 
lunged forward and took the native entirely by 
surprise. The two went over in a flurry of snow. 

For a moment the Eskimo struggled fiercely, 
possibly thinking that his fur-clad assailant was an 
Arctic wolf. But his resistance ceased on recog¬ 
nizing he was in human grip. 

La Marr yanked his captive to his feet and 




CHANCE OF MORPHEUS 


15 


searched for weapons, finding none. Then he re¬ 
membered the rules of the Ottawa “red book” and 
pronounced the statutory warning. 

“Arrest you, Avic, in the name of the king; 
warn you that anything you say may be used 
against you. D’ye understand?” 

As he asked this last, which is not a part of the 
official warning, he realized that Avic did not. 

“Barking sun-dogs, why didn’t the good Lord 
provide one language for everybody?” he com¬ 
plained. “Anyway, there ain’t much chance of 
my understanding anything you may say against 
yourself. I’ll tell it all over to you when I get 
you to the post. Now we’ll mush!” 

“Ugh—yes,” grunted the Eskimo, seemingly 
undisturbed. 

The young constable was puzzled by the prison¬ 
er’s demeanor. He stared at the man, whose stolid 
expression was heightened by thick lips and high 
cheek-bones. Perhaps the native did not know he 
was in the hands of the police and on his way to 
pay for the dreadful crime. 

Raising his parkee, La Marr disclosed the scar¬ 
let tunic which he wore underneath. It was the 




16 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


color of authority in the far North; no Eskimo who 
ever had seen it before could doubt it. 

There was no gleam of intelligence in the dark 
eyes that stared from behind narrow, reddened 
lids. There dawned upon the constable a possi¬ 
bility. The Eskimo was snow blind under the 
curse of the Northland winter which falls alike to 
native and outlander, at times. That would ex¬ 
plain his back-tracking. Rather than wander in 
circles over the white blanketed tundra until a 
miserable death came to his rescue, he was hurry¬ 
ing back, while a glimmer of sight yet remained, 
to take his chances with the mystery called “Law.” 

“Not a bad choice,” thought La Marr as he 
stepped out ahead to break the trail that the night’s 
blizzard had covered. 

After locking his prisoner in the tiny guard 
room, a part of the one-story frame structure that 
sheltered the small detachment, the constable 
started for the post of the Arctic Trading Company 
a few hundred yards away. He was young, La 
Marr, and pleased with himself over his first cap¬ 
ture of importance. He anticipated satisfaction in 
discussing the arrest with Harry Karmack, the only 




CHANCE OF MORPHEUS 


17 


other white man at Armistice now that Oliver 
O’Malley had passed out. 

But he did not get across the yard. 

The report of a rifle from down the frozen river, 
which flowed north, halted him. He saw a dog 
team limping in over the crust, unmistakably the 
detachment’s own bunch of malamutes. The man 
at the gee-pole could be none other than Sergeant 
Seymour, returned at last from the long Arctic 
patrol. 

Here was a vastly more important auditor for 
his triumph. He sprang forward to offer salute 
and greetings and to help with the malamutes, for 
an Eskimo dog team always arrives with a flourish 
that is exciting and troublesome. 

Once the animals were off to their kennels and 
before Seymour fairly had caught his breath from 
the last spurt into camp, the young constable was 
blurting out the details of Oliver O’Malley’s un¬ 
timely end. 

“But I’ve captured the murderer!” La Marr 
exclaimed in triumph. “I’ve got Avic, the Eskimo, 
hard and fast in the guard room. Come and see.” 




18 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


With interest the sergeant followed the lead of 
the one and only man in his command. 

The native had been squatted on the floor with 
his back against the wall near a stove, the sides 
of which glowed like a red apple. On their entry, 
he rose muttering in gutturals that meant nothing 
to the constable. Seymour gave one glance of 
recognition, then turned. 

46 You’ve got a murderer, sure enough, La Marr,” 
he said with that slowness of speech so seldom 
accelerated as to be an outstanding characteristic. 
“But his name’s not Avic and by no possibility 
could he have had anything to do with the killing 
of O’Malley.” 

“Then who the hell-,” the constable began. 

“This is Olespe of the Lady Franklin band. For 
three weeks he’s been my prisoner. On the sled 
out there are the remains of the wife he killed 
in an attack of seal-fed jealousy.” 

The chagrin of Constable La Marr was written 
in gloom across a face so lately aglow. 





CHAPTER II 


THE ESKIMO WAY 

Grim, indeed, had been Sergeant Seymour’s 
sledded return to his detachment. For more than 
two hundred miles across the frozen tundra he had 
driven his ghastly load—the murdered woman 
wrapped in deer skins after the native custom, 
sewed up in a tarp and lashed to a komatik, the 
Labrador sled that gives such excellent service on 
cross-country runs. All this, that the inquest which 
the Dominion requires, regardless of isolation, 
might be held in form and the case against the 
uxoricide assured. 

And out ahead, unarmed, and under “open” 
arrest, had mushed the murderer himself, break¬ 
ing trail toward his own doom. Often in the whirl¬ 
ing snow, Olespe had been beyond his captor’s 
sight. But never had he wavered from the most 
feasible course to Armistice; always had he been 
busily making camp when the dogs and their offi¬ 
cial driver caught up at the appointed night-stop. 

19 


20 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


No white man could have been entrusted with such 
“fatigue duty” under like circumstances. Three 
weeks of such opportunity for remorse must have 
been too much. 

But Seymour was not thinking now of this re¬ 
cent ordeal. 

The case of Olespe, except for the formalities of 
coroner’s inquest, commitment and trial was set¬ 
tled. The plight of his unhappy constable held 
the pity of the sergeant, always considerate. 

“I’m not blaming you, Charley,” he assured. 
“Until you’ve been up here a few years, all Eski¬ 
mos look right much alike.” 

“Can’t I start after the real Avic at once,” 
pleaded the constable. “I’ll make no second 
mistake.” 

La Marr was as eager as a hound held in leash 
after its nose has rubbed the scent. But he could 
not, just then, bring himself to confess his over¬ 
sleeping. 

Seymour did not answer at once, but set about 
taking off his heavy trail clothes and getting into 
the uniform of command. He was a large built 




THE ESKIMO WAY 


21 


man, but lean of the last ounce of superfluous flesh 
owing to the long patrols that he never shirked. 

The scarlet tunic became him. Across the breast 
of it showed lines of vari-colored ribbons, for his 
service in France had been as valorous as vigor¬ 
ous. He had gone into the war from his Yukon 
post and, almost directly after the armistice, back 
into the Northwest Territories to establish one of 
the new stations of the Mounted in the Eskimo 
country. 

The green constable chafed under the silence, 
but he did not make the mistake of thinking it due 
to slow thinking. With Seymour many had erred 
in that direction to their sorrow. The sergeant 
certainly was slow in speech, but when he spoke he 
said something. He might seem tardy in action, 
but once started he was as active as a polar bear 
after a seal. 

“No hurry about taking after this Avic,” he said 
at last. “Likely he’ll not travel far this double¬ 
thermometer weather.” The reference was to a 
jocular fable of the region that to get the tempera¬ 
ture one had to hitch two thermometers together. 
“At worst he can’t get clear away—no one ever 




22 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


does, except when old man Death catches him first. 
We’ll hold our inquest, then I’ll issue a war¬ 
rant.” 

“And detail me to serve it?” La Marr’s question 
had that breathless interrogation point of secret 
self-accusation. 

To Seymour’s thin lips came that whimsical 
smile which transformed his whole expression, de¬ 
spite its blanket of beard. To a student of expres¬ 
sion, this would have shown the tenderness of a 
woman to be concealed beneath the life-hardened 
mask. His grimness melted like snow beneath the 
caress of a Chinook wind; yet warning remained 
that this gentleness was not open to imposition. 

“Right-o, Charlie,” he promised. “I’ve made 
mistakes in my day and been thankful for the 
chance to rectify them. You’re nominated to bring 
in whoever is named in the warrant after the in¬ 
quest. Let’s go.” 

He put on a pea-jacket, on the sleeves of which 
the stripes of his rank stood out in deep yellow. 
On a thatch of towsled, brownish hair he settled 
the fur cap proscribed in the regulations for winter 


wear. 




THE ESKIMO WAY 


23 


Outside they first attended the disposal of the 
sled. Without telling the post’s native hostler the 
grim nature of their load, they saw it placed in a 
shed which had the temperature of a morgue. 

Adjoining the police buildings on the south was 
‘the establishment of the Arctic Trading Company, 
Ltd. This was a low but substantially built struc¬ 
ture of timber and stone, also facing the frozen 
river. The “Mounties” entered the storm door 
which gave upon the factor’s quarters, with the in¬ 
tention of divorcing Harry Karmack from his 
book and pipe long enough to accompany them to 
the scene of the local crime. 

“Dear eyes, but it’s glad to see you home again, 
Serg.,” was the trader’s greeting, as he arose from 
his chair beside an “airtight burner” and extended 
his hand for a hearty grip. “Things have come to 
a pretty pass in the territories when the ’Skims 
get to biting the hands that are feeding them.” 

Seymour met this comment with a grave nod. 
Like others of the Force on Arctic detail, he was 
surprised at what approached an epidemic of mur¬ 
derous violence among their Eskimo charges, in 
general a kindly and docile people. 




24 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


A prepossessing individual was Harry Karmack, 
not at all the typical trader. He was dark, from a 
strain of French blood in his Canadian make-up, 
with laughing eyes and a handsome mouth. As he 
seldom took the winter trail, he shaved daily “so 
as not to let the howling North get the better of 
me,” as he liked to put it. His smooth cheeks con¬ 
trasted sharply with the bearded ones of the offi¬ 
cers, their growth cultivated for protection on the 
snow patrols. Generally Karmack wore tweeds 
over his powerful frame and a bright tie beneath 
the collar of his flannel shirt. At that, he was a 
seasoned sour-dough and a sharp trader, respected 
and feared by the natives. 

“What do you think’s got into the blood of the 
breed all of a sudden?” he asked. 

“We’ve handed them too many rifles, for one 
thing,” offered Seymour slowly. “But don’t you 
worry, the Mounted will get the deluded creatures 
in hand. Will you come with us for a look at the 
O’Malley scene?” 

Karmack reached for his furs. 

“If you don’t,” he remarked, a severe note in his 
voice, “you scarlet soldiers won’t bo any safer 




THE ESKIMO WAY 


25 


than m traders. When I think of young O’Mal¬ 
ley, one of the finest chap# I ever knew, struck 
flown here at a police post-” 

A catch in hi# voice stopped him. Taking a bat¬ 
tery lantern from a cupboard beside the doorway, 
he signified he was ready for the said inspection. 

La Marr led the way to the scene of the crime 
—a stone hut half buried in the snow. At the door 
he broke the R. C. M. P. seal which he placed there 
before setting out on his futile pursuit of the sus¬ 
pect. 

“Nothing was disturbed, sir,” said the constable 
in a hushed voice, “Everything is as Karmack and 
I found it when we came to investigate why 
O’Malley did not return to the store.” 

They stepped out of the gathering dusk into a 
windowless room. The roof was so low as to cause 
the shortest of them to stoop. The trader pushed 
the button on his lantern and raised it. 

Across the cave-like room, which was hare of 
furniture after the Eskimo fashion, Seymour 
stared. There, in a sitting posture on a sleeping 
bench, was all that was mortal of the assistant 
factor. 





26 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


In life, O’Malley had been a handsome youth of 
pronounced Irish type. Sudden death had wrought 
so few changes that the sergeant had difficulty in 
believing that he looked on other than a sleeping 
fellow human. A dankness, as of a tomb, served 
to convince him. 

The victim’s head rested against the back wall 
of the hut; his crossed feet upon a deerskin floor 
covering. Clutched in one hand was a black fox 
pelt. Upon the sleeping bench beside him lay one 
of silver. Both looked to be unusually fine skins. 
Presumably, some dispute over the price of the 
prizes was the motive of the crime. 

Karmack stepped closer with the light; indicated 
by gesture a knotted line of seal skin around the 
victim’s throat, the end dangling down over his 
parkee. 

“The Eskimo way!” muttered the trader bro¬ 
kenly. 

The shudder that passed through Seymour’s wiry 
frame wa§ not observed by the companions of the 
inspection. No more was it caused by the untimely 
fate of Oliver O’Malley. 




CHAPTER III 


COMPLICATION ASTOUNDING 

As is the silken kerchief to the Latin garroter, so 
is the Ugiuk-line to the Eskimo bent upon strangu¬ 
lation. Strong reason had Sergeant Seymour of 
the Mounted to realize the possibilities in the clutch 
of the stout cord made from the skin of a bearded 
seal. 

Although he had made no mention of the fact 
in Karmack’s quarters, when the trader pro¬ 
nounced warning that the out-of-hand Eskimos 
soon would be clutching for the throats of the wear¬ 
ers of the scarlet, already had they clutched at his. 
The vivid memory of his narrow escape had 
brought his involuntary shudder at sight of the 
sinister drape about O’Malley’s throat. 

On the farthest-North night of his last patrol, he 
had elected to sleep in a deserted igloo on the 
skirts of a village rather than suffer the stifle of 
an occupied one. After midnight he had awakened 

from a strangling sensation to find himself in the 
27 


28 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


hands of two stalwart assailants. The knot of a 
similar seal-hide line was gripping his throat. He 
had thrown off the pair only by an effort so su¬ 
preme as to leave him too weak to follow them 
through the snow tunnel into the storm. Probably 
he never would know their identity or be able more 
than to guess at their motive as one of fancied 
revenge. 

Seymour did not speak of this now as they stood 
in the hut of tragedy. No more did he mention 
the news that slowly was filtering through the 
North that Corporal Doak, Three River detach¬ 
ment of the Royal Mounted, and Factor Bender 
of the Hudson’s Bay company post had been 
slain in a brutal and treacherous manner. To 
spread alarm was no part of his policy. But over 
at the post was the Ugiuk-line that had been used 
on him and in his mind was a vivid idea of its 
practice in Eskimo hands. 

From these—the fearsome souvenir and the 
shuddering memory—he suspected that the O’Mal¬ 
ley case was not as open-and-shut as it seemed. 
For him, mystery stalked the crime, one that would 




COMPLICATION ASTOUNDING 29 


not be solved by the apprehension of Avic, the 
Eskimo. 

Silently, he completed his immediate investiga¬ 
tion of the crime. Two points stood out to confirm 
the suspicion born of his intimate knowledge of the 
Eskimo garroting methods. Upon the corpus 
delicti there was absolutely no mark except the 
sinister purple rim about the throat and a blood 
spot beneath the skin where the knot in the seal 
line had taken strangle hold. In the hut there was 
no sign of a struggle such as he had put forth to 
save himself in the igloo, not a dent in the earthen 
floor or a skin rug out of place. Yet, as he well 
knew, O’Malley was a powerful youth and of fight¬ 
ing stock! 

“Let’s have the facts—such as you know.” 
The sergeant turned suddenly to Karmack. 

“Dear eyes, I should say you shall have them— 
every one,” returned the trader eagerly. 

Despite certain mannerisms and his unusual— 
for the outlands—fastidiousness of dress, Karmack 
was straightforward and exceedingly matter of 
fact. 

Word from native sources, it seemed, had 




30 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


reached the trading company’s store several days 
before that Avic was in from his trap line with fox 
pelts “worth a fortune,” according to Eskimo 
standards. He had borrowed this hut in which they 
now stood in the outskirts of the town from a rela¬ 
tive and had sent the native for the makings of 
a “party,” or potlatch. The hunter himself had 
not appeared in camp or sent any direct word to 
Karmack that he had fox skins for sale. He had 
no debit on the books of the Arctic company, so 
the reasonable supposition of his aloofness was that 
he meant to drive a hard bargain. 

Skilled in barter with the natives, Karmack said 
he had countered by betraying no interest in the 
arrival of the aloof hunter. He had felt confident 
that, given time, Avic would run short of funds 
for entertaining and market his catch at a reason¬ 
able figure. But, at length, had come disturbing 
rumors over his native “grape-vine.” Avic had 
heard, the rumor went, that the Moravian Mission 
has established a new trade store at Wolf Lake, 
near the big river—the mighty Mackenzie. He was 
excited by tales of high prices paid there and was 
planning to migrate to that market with his prizes. 





COMPLICATION ASTOUNDING 31 


“It was then,” continued Karmack, “that I told 
O’Malley to mush over to see this bird and talk 
him into a good humor. The young chap had de¬ 
veloped a knack at sign-language barter, although 
he knew little Eskimo; I was busy on a bale of furs 
at the store. He was just to persuade Avic to come 
into the post where we’d come to some satisfactory 
agreement as to price for whatever the ’Skim’s 
traps had yielded. 

“By gar, sir, two hours passed and Oliver did 
not come back, nor was there any sign of the 
hunter. The mission shouldn’t have taken him half 
an hour, for all in the name of reason that the 
native could have wanted was for us to come to 
him with an invitation. I began to get anxious 
and started out to see what was what. Meeting La 
Marr out front, I asked him to come along with 
me, still with no apprehension. We found what 
you yourself have seen—exactly that and nothing 
more.” 

He paused for a moment with his emotion, then: 
“Holy smoke, man, if I had known what would 
eventuate, I’d never have sent him but gone myself. 
They’re afraid of me, these confounded huskies, 




32 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


and I’d grown to love that boy as a brother!” 

“What do you know about O’Malley, Karmack 
—how he came into the territories—what he’d 
done in the provinces—all that sort of thing?” 
Seymour asked the disjointed question seemingly 
satisfied with the other’s preliminary statement. 

The trader was silent a moment, thinking. 

“Not a great deal, come to think of it,” he said, 
before his hesitation had become pronounced. “A 
tight-mouthed lad, Oliver, when it came to his own 
affairs. He hails from Ottawa and was sent out 
by the president of the Arctic Trading Company. 
Brought a letter from the big chief telling me to 
make a trader out of him, if possible. Evidently 
his people have money or influence. Perhaps 
there’s some politics in it. I don’t really know, old 
bean.” 

“Hadn’t been in any jam down below, had he?” 

“Oh, rather not—not that sort at all. May have 
seen a bit of Montreal or Quebec and perhaps had 
crossed the home bridge to Hull, where it’s a trifle 
damp, you know, but nothing serious, I’m certain. 
The big chief never would have sent me a blighter.” 




COMPLICATION ASTOUNDING 33 


The sergeant asked for the victim’s next of kin 
and who should be notified. 

“Oliver never spoke of his family,” answered 
the factor. “Had a picture or two on the packing 
box he used for a bureau, but we never discussed 
them. Said to notify the head office if anything 
went wrong with him. Dear eyes, the lad was pe¬ 
culiar in some ways. You’d think-” 

The sergeant’s interest seemed not to lie in the 
trader’s thoughts. He had two inquests on his 
hands, to say nothing of the capture of Avic of the 
foxes. For the moment forgotten was the fact that 
he had promised Constable La Marr this detail. 
Moreover, there remained that suspicion, bom from 
his own narrow escape from the Ugiuk-line, that 
there was more behind the murder than appeared 
on the surface. He led the way from the hut; 
waited until La Marr had affixed another police 
seal on the door, then moved ahead into the main 
trail, a sled-wide path which camp traffic kept 
beaten down between the banks of snow. 

A shout from down-trail startled them. From 
out of the increasing dusk, bells jangling, bushed 
tails waving like banners, dashed a dog team 





34 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


dragging a light sled. Wondering, they flattened 
against the snow to give gangway. The arrival of a 
strange team at that time of year was an event. 

The sled was braked to a halt a few yards down 
the trail. A tall driver, slim despite an envelop¬ 
ment of furs, sprang from the basket and waited 
for them to come up. 

“I thought I recognized a uniform in passing— 
and I need direction.” 

The voice sounded clear as a bell on the eve¬ 
ning frost and unmistakably feminine. Moreover, 
it carried none of the accent peculiar to the half- 
breed mission-trained women who spoke English. 
They looked closer into a face of pure white and 
eyes that might have been brushed into the pallor 
with a sooty finger. 

A white woman in Armistice—a young and 
comely girl of their own race! Think how incred¬ 
ible it must seem to three who had settled down 
to an October-April winter of isolation. 

‘Tm Sergeant Seymour, of the Mounted, in 
charge of this detachment,” offered the policeman, 
for once speeding his speech. “Who’re you look¬ 
ing for, ma’am?” 




COMPLICATION ASTOUNDING 35 


“I must find Oliver O’Malley’s fur trading 
store.” 

“And who might be seeking our young trader?” 
The sergeant kept from his voice any hint of the 
dread that had clutched him. 

“I’m Moira O’Malley of British Columbia—his 
sister.” 

This astounding complication left the three men 
speechless, glad for the dusk that helped mask the 
consternation that must be written on their faces. 




CHAPTER IV 


BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 

In his grown-up life, Sergeant Seymour had met 
a procession of emergencies. Seldom had he 
failed to do the right and proper thing—the best 
for all concerned. But never had he faced a more 
difficult proposition than that presented by the 
young woman who now faced him on the trail, 
awaiting news of the brother she had journeyed so 
far to join. 

When he thought of what lay in the hut they had 
just replaced under Mounted Police seal, he was 
distressed to the quick. When he pondered the dis¬ 
tress and disappointment that must be hers when 
she learned the truth, that hidden strain of kind¬ 
ness within him promptly interposed barrier 
against his blurting out the facts, police fashion. 
He felt that he must temporize. 

“You’ve come to the right camp, Miss O’Malley, 

hut your brother won’* be in to-night. In the morn- 

36 


BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


37 


ing-. But surely you did not mush from the 

Mackenzie alone?” 

A small sigh, doubtless of disappointment at the 
further delay, passed her lips; but no exclama¬ 
tion came. Evidently she was a self-contained 
young person. 

No, she explained readily, she had not come 
alone. The Rev. Luke Morrow and his wife were 
behind with another sled and they had traveled 
only from Wolf Lake. The Rev. Morrow, it 
seemed, was a friend and fellow churchman of her 
father, then stationed at Gold, British Columbia. 

“Only mushed from Wolf Lake!” exclaimed 
Constable La Marr, stressing the only, although 
after one glance into her wonder face he was hat¬ 
ing himself the more for having let the fox hunter 
get away from him. 

The missionaries were having trail trouble, she 
continued. Being so near journey’s end, she had 
dashed on with her lighter load, hoping to send her 
brother to help them into camp, as well as being 
the earlier to the reunion. 

“Constable La Marr will go out at once,” de¬ 
clared the sergeant. “How far are they?” 





38 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“Scarcely a mile. We were in sight of your 
flag when they spilled.” 

La Marr at once took the back trail, not waiting 
to go to the post for the worn police team nor, con¬ 
sidering the distance, wishing to experiment with 
the girl’s strange huskies. 

At the moment Moira turned to quell an incip¬ 
ient dog fight; the sergeant turned quickly to 
Karmack. 

“Not a word to her until after the inquest—un¬ 
til we’ve a chance to break it to her gently.” 

The trader nodded agreement and was intro¬ 
duced when she had straightened out her team. 

“Mr. Karmack was—is your brother’s chief here 
at lonely young Armistice.” 

For a moment he held his breath for fear the 
verb slip would be noticed and the question of tense 
raised. The girl, however, was too much inter¬ 
ested in her surroundings to heed. The trader 
helped by bowing in his best manner and seizing 
one of her mittened hands in both his own for a 
warm greeting. 

“A fine lad, Oliver. Dear eyes, what a fine 
chap!” 




BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


39 


His startling exclamative caused her own eyes 
to open, but Karmaek merely grinned in amiable 
fashion. 

“I hope you and your friends will accept the 
poor hospitality of the trading post, at least for 
this night,” he concluded heartily. “We’ll have 
plenty of room.” 

“But isn’t there a mission house,” began the 
girl. “I thought the Morrows-” 

Seymour interrupted. 

“Nothing doing, Karmaek, with your commer¬ 
cialized hospitality. They’re the first visitors of 
the winter; I claim them in the name of the king.” 
He turned to the girl. “The mission house hasn’t 
been opened for months. We’ll make you comfort¬ 
able at the detachment barrack—won’t have to use 
the guard room, either. If you’ll draw rein at the 
flag pole-” 

Her “mush—mush on!” to the dogs rang clear 
and gave the policeman further speech with the 
factor. 

“You couldn’t have her there to-night, Karmaek, 
in view of what I have to tell her to-morrow. Her 
brother’s things scattered all about-she’d ask 






40 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


too many questions. Have you tangled in no 
time.” 

Again Karmack nodded agreement. He hadn’t 
thought of that, but only of being hospitable. It 
would have been a treat, though, to entertain such a 
charmer under the chaperonage of the missionary 
couple. He would send up some butter for their 
supper. That of the police stores smelled to the 
heavens. 

“That’s fine; if ours came from cows, they were 
athletes,” Seymour replied with a grimace. 
“Come up with yourself for coffee. And I wish 
you’d send your man for their dogs and kennel 
them for the night. My malamutes raise Billy-blue 
when there’s any new canine clan in sniffing dis¬ 
tance.” 

The isolation of Armistice, with its difficulties 
of transportation, combined with its newness as a 
police post caused even the living room of the de¬ 
tachment to take on a barracks-like austerity. 

The scant furniture had been made on the spot 
and was all too rustic. There were bunks along 
three walls and a scattering of skins upon the rough 
boards of the floor. A lithograph of King George, 




BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


41 


draped with the colors, occupied a position of 
honor, the only other decoration being a print of 
the widely popular “Eddie,” Prince of Wales. 
But logs blazed cheerfully in the stone fireplace 
and Moira O’Malley, divested of her outer trail 
clothes, looked very much at home as she stood to 
its warmth. 

Not until he returned from the kitchen and the 
starting of a “company” supper did Russell Sey¬ 
mour realize in full the startling beauty of the Irish 
girl who had come to them at such an unfortunate 
moment. She was within an inch of being as tall 
as himself as she stood there on the hearth. Her 
lampblack hair, coiled low on her lovely neck, ac¬ 
tually was dressed to show her small ears—and al¬ 
most had he forgotten that white women had pairs 
of such. 

A generous mouth, full and red of lips, sent his 
eyes hastening on their fleeting inspection when she 
became aware of his presence in the kitchen door¬ 
way. If the even rows of pearls behind those lips 
had flashed him a smile then, the temptation must 
have been too great. Her slender figure merely 
hinted at rounding out in its mould of black blan- 




42 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


ket-cloth. He glanced shyly at her ankles—always 
the cover-point in his estimate of feminine pulchri¬ 
tude. She still wore her trail muckluks of fur, 
clumsy looking as a squaw’s sacking, but he knew 
beyond doubt how silk stockings and pumps would 
become her. 

In the eyes he had remarked on the trail, how¬ 
ever, Moira’s beauty reached its highest peak, he 
decided. They were as blue as the heart of an 
Ungova iceberg and as warm as the fire which 
glowed behind her. They looked out at him in a 
friendly, inquiring way from behind lashes as dark 
as an Arctic winter night. 

And on the morrow those lashes would be wet 
with tears of grief. At the moment he’d gladly 
have given his hope of heaven to have ushered a 
laughing young Oliver O’Malley into the room. 

“Decorative, to say the least,” she remarked, at 
last flashing him the threatened smile. 

“Yes, ma’am—what ma’am?” he stammered. 

“The uniform of the Mounted as you wear it in 
that door frame,” she teased him. “At that, I’d 
rather see it—you on a horse.” 

He fell back on the only defense he knew—a 




BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


43 


pretense at seriousness. “Up here we’re the Royal 
Canadian Dis-Mounted Police, Miss O’Malley. 
We know only two seasons—dog and canoe. There 
isn’t a single ‘G’ Division mount north of Fort 
Resolution. By the time I see a horse again, I’ll 
probably have forgotten how to ride. I’ll climb 
aboard Injun style and try to steer him by his 
tail.” 

The sergeant was glad to hear the crunch of steps 
upon the snow. Under the circumstances, he was 
in no mood for persiflage and more than willing to 
give up the bluff that seemed required. He stifled 
a sigh of relief as La Marr ushered in the mis¬ 
sionaries. 

A quiet couple, plain, both a trifle frail-looking 
for Arctic rigors, the Morrows proved to be. Seri¬ 
ous as they were about “The Work” to which they 
were prepared to give years of sacrifice, both were 
“regulars” in the life of the North. Scarcely 
would they wait to warm up before insisting on 
helping their hosts prepare supper. Moira, too, 
insisted on having a hand. The lean-to kitchen 
refused to hold them all, however, so Seymour 




44 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


cited the “too many cooks” rule and discharged all 
but Mrs. Morrow. 

The meal which soon was on the oilcloth was 
more substantial than formal. It consisted of 
warmed-up soup from a great kettle that held a 
week’s supply at a time, then sizzling carabou 
steaks, sour-dough bread, boiled beans and bacon 
and, of course, marmalade from distant England. 
It was the sort of menu that “sticks to the ribs” 
gratefully after a day in the open. When Kar- 
mack came in for his promised coffee, he found 
the post gayer than ever he had known it to be. 
Yet, for three of them buoyancy was as forced as 
jigging at a wake. 

With tact increased by the fear that some chance 
slip would disclose to their lovely guest the news 
that he felt temporarily should be kept from her. 
Sergeant Seymour discovered that the ladies were 
worn by their long run in the biting cold. He 
threw open the door of “officers’ room,” disclosing 
a wood fire crackling in a Yukon stove and two 
bunks spread with blankets fresh from the post’s 
reserve supply. 

“Not much to offer as a guest room, but our one 




BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


45 


best bet,” he apologized. “I’ll confess frankly 
that there isn’t a single bunk-sheet in the detach¬ 
ment. But I think I can guarantee a sound sleep 
for both of you. I’ll promise there’ll be no break¬ 
fast alarm in the morning, but the makings of a 
meal will be beside the kitchen stove when you’re 
ready.” 

Protest unexpected came from mild-mannered 
Mrs. Morrow. “But we’re routing you out of house 
and home, sergeant,” she exclaimed. With a nod 
of her blond head, she indicated an extra uniform 
which dangled from a hook against the wall, tell¬ 
tale staff stripes upon its crimson sleeve. 

“A dreadful thing to do,” added Moira. “And 
en your first night home after your long patrol!” 

That portion of Seymour’s face that was not 
bearded took color from the tunic that had betrayed 
him. “And I thought I’d removed all trace of the 
former occupant. Must be getting color blind.” 
He carried the jacket into the living room. “Don’t 
worry about your reverend, Mrs. Morrow; he’ll 
bunk as snug as a bug out here with La Marr and 
me,” he called back. 

There was a chorus of good-nights; then the men 




46 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


settled to their pipes before the fireplace. After 
a reasonable wait in silence, Seymour lowered his 
voice and communicated to Luke Morrow the news 
of the tragedy. Without reservation, the mission¬ 
ary approved their course of keeping it from 
Moira until after the necessary legal formalities 
had been carried out. Then, he said, he would 
take charge with a religious reverence that might 
lighten the blow. 

“She’s a wonderful woman, Moira O’Malley,” 
he said with deep feeling. “She endeared herself 
to everyone who met her over at Wolf Lake. 
Utterly wrapped up in her brother, this will be a 

terrible blow. I wonder if-” He hesitated. 

“Would it be admissible, do you think, to tell her 
of the death but not the fearful form?” 

Glances exchanged by the three laymen showed 
that they appreciated the missionary’s struggle— 
kindly thought against strict truthfulness. Long 
had he taught the “truth, the whole truth and noth¬ 
ing but the truth.” But just now he wavered. 

“By gar! It absolutely would!” Karmack 
vociferated. 

Seymour’s quick wit worked out a solution. 





BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


47 


“An accident of the Arctic prairies. I’ll trust 
having that one marked up against me in the 
Doomsday Book.” 

“Blessed are the kindly of heart,” murmured the 
“sky-pilot.” “So be it!” 

Of course, they all realized that Moira would 
learn in time the nature of the “accident,” but that 
need not be until Time had its chance to salve the 
wound. The arrest of Avic need not bring about 
disclosure, once the whites in Armistice were 
pledged to keep it from her. She might know him 
only as another unfortunate, misguided Eskimo 
slayer, a handcuff brother to Olespe of the Lady 
Franklin band, then in the guard room. 

‘‘But Mrs. Morrow?” The thought came sud¬ 
denly to Seymour that the woman missionary 
spoke some Eskimo. “She’ll hear of it from the 
natives.” 

Luke Morrow smiled; they did not know of the 
iron which was in the make-up of his little blond 
wife as he did. 

“She is a good woman, so merciful. I will pray 
this out with her in the morning.” 

For a time, gloomy silence held the group 




48 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


around the fireplace. Suddenly Karmack leaned 
over and grasped Morrow almost roughly by the 
shoulder. 

“Parson, do you know why that girl left her 
father and the comparative comforts of a British 
Columbia gold camp to share a trader’s shack in 
bleak Armistice with her brother?” 

The trader’s demand scarcely could have been 
more vehement had he personally resented Moira’s 
coming. “I know that he did not expect her. 
What’s more, he never even spoke of having a 
sister.” 

The missionary’s calm was perfect. 

“She had no way of letting him know that she 
was coming to spend the winter with him, once the 
wireless she sent to Edmonton failed to reach Wolf 
Lake,” he replied. “She came through herself by 
team in the first storm of winter. We had great 
difficulty in keeping her with us until we ourselves 
were ready to make the trip across country. She’d 
have come through with an Indian dog driver if we 
had not protested so stoutly.” 

“All that to see a brother, eh?” snorted Kar¬ 
mack. “Are you certain she is his sister?” 




BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


49 


Seymour sprang to his feet, an angry glitter in 
his gray eyes. “Enough of that, Karmack! Ex¬ 
press another such doubt and out you go—for 
good.” 

For a moment, a snarling expression strove to 
master the trader’s face. The missionary poured 
oil. 

“I’m sure Mr. Karmack meant nothing wrong. 
He’s just a bit upset by all these happenings.” 

“Upset? Dear eyes, yes—I’ll say I’m upset.” 
The factor made a quick grasp for peace, for the 
sergeant looked dangerous. “All I meant was that 
I could understand a wife going to such an effort 
to join a husband, but not a sister.” 

“Any reason to believe Oliver O’Malley had a 
wife?” Seymour remained stem. 

“None in the world. But a sister- To make 

a trip like that, she must have had some very press¬ 
ing reason.” Again his eyes questioned the parson. 

“If there existed any other than sisterly affec¬ 
tion,” said Morrow evenly, “she did not express it 
to me.” His manner was so final as to make 
further questioning discourteous. 

Clumsily as Karmack had used his probe, he had 





50 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


but echoed a query that had been in Seymour’s 
mind from his first realization of Moira’s superla¬ 
tive comeliness. The sergeant had meant to ask 
about this when he and Morrow were alone, and 
he would have put his question without giving of¬ 
fense. 

Why had one who deserved to be the honored 
toast of the Dominion rushed into the Arctic wilds, 
evidently unasked, certainly unexpected, at a time 
of year when it would be next to impossible to 
send her back? 

Was there any connection between her coming 
and what had occurred so recently in the Eskimo 
hut? Had she brought a warning of some sort to 
this beloved brother and been lulled into thinking 
she might delay for a missionary escort and still 
be in time to serve and save him? 

Those rapid-fire speculations, unvoiced, seemed 
to advise only negative answers. Yet why had she 
come? 

Constable La Marr, who had been silent all 
evening to a point of moodiness, now snapped 
Seymour from his thoughts with a question of his 


own. 




BEST OF BAD BUSINESS 


51 


“And when are you going to turn me loose after 
that accursed Avic?” he demanded in a tone that 
was scarcely subordinate. 

The missionary looked up at his violence, but 
had no censure for the speech of it. These men 
who give their lives to lighten the Arctic native’s 
sorry burden grow accustomed to strong language. 

“At daybreak you will take the dogs, mush over 
to Prospect, and subpoena those three mining en¬ 
gineers wintering there to serve on coroner’s jury. 
Bring them back with you. Miss O’Malley need 
know of only one inquest.” He glanced with 
thoughtful eyes toward the closed door of the inner 

room. “After that-” 

One look at the young constable’s face must have 
told any who saw it that Avic, the Eskimo, would 
need to hide like a weasel to escape that arm of 
the law. 





CHAPTER V 


SILVER AND BLACK 

La Marr was away at dawn with a venire 
facias for each of the three gold explorers, the only 
competent jurors within reach. As it was a matter 
of forty miles’ rough sledding to the prospectors’ 
camp and return, the inquests could scarcely be 
held before the late afternoon. That the girl whose 
emotions they were conspiring to protect might be 
too busy for vagrant suspicions, Sergeant Seymour 
suggested to the Morrows that they open up Mission 
House while he was at liberty to help them. 

“Don’t want to seem inhospitable, Mrs. Mor¬ 
row,” he said in his slowest, most deferential 
manner, “and you know you’ll be welcome here as 
long as you care to stay, but I’m sure you want to 
get into your own place as soon as possible. Never 
know when some Arctic hades is going to cut loose 
and take me out on the trail. I’m off duty this 
morning—more than ready to help with the heavy 
work.” 


52 


SILVER AND BLACK 


53 


This brought an offer from Moira O’Malley 
that struck the hearts of those whojcnew. 

“Our sergeant of the Dismounted is positively 
brilliant this morning,” she said, confounding him 
utterly with twin flashes of Irish blue. “Why, all 
the time I attended school in Ottawa, I saw no one 
more considerate. You see, when Oliver gets 
hack from this inconsiderate mush of his, Ffl 
become quite useless as your handmaiden, Emma, 
with all the things a brother will be needing done 
for him.” 

Mrs. Morrow had not been advised of the true 
situation, but she had her own ideas as to the 
proper habitat in an outland’s camp for a girl like 
Moira. 

“Oh, you’ll keep right on living at Mission 
House as long as you’re here, my dear,” she said. 
“The shack of a bachelor trader is no place for 
so dashing a belle.” 

“But I know Olie’s quarters, whatever they are, 
will need my sisterly attentions,” she protested, 
spreading unconscious agony to the two men. “His 
room at home always was a sight. A place for 




54 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


everything but nothing in its place seemed to be 
that Mick’s motto.” 

As the two men went on ahead to the small dwell¬ 
ing that had been closed since the previous spring 
thaw, Seymour found himself asking again why 
she had come. Were sisters as devoted as that? 
As motherly? Never having had a sister, he was 
unable to answer. 

The pair stripped weather boarding from doors 
and windows, aired the house thoroughly and car¬ 
ried in a supply of wood from the shed. They 
then closed it tight and built roaring fires in every 
available stove to remove the winter chill. The 
native hostler from the post already had shoveled 
paths through the snow. 

So far as the two males could see, but little 
inside cleaning would be necessary. But the 
women, on coming to the house presently, revised 
that verdict and fell to with broom and mop. 

The smoke from Mission House stove-pipes 
probably had been reported to Karmack, for he 
arrived presently, his interpreter drawing a tobog¬ 
gan loaded with provisions which were presented to 
the missionaries with compliments from the trading 




SILVER AND BLACK 


55 


company. The gift was gracious, the supplies 
being of a sort not found in the somewhat meager 
store of staples provided by the societies. They 
were gratefully received. 

Came then a second shock from Moira, again an 
innocent one, in the form of coupled questions. 

“But Mr. Karmack, have you locked the store?” 
she asked first. 

“Not much trade these wintry days and if cus¬ 
tomers come, they’ll stick around like summer bull- 
flies.” He accomplished the only laugh of the 
morning. 

“But who is there to tell Oliver, when he comes 
back, that I’ve arrived and am waiting?” 

Harry Karmack’s freshly shaved, usually ruddy 
face went as white as the girl’s natural pallor at 
this unexpected turn to his attempted whimsicality. 
He staggered back as if she had struck him a blow. 
Seymour, standing near, steadied him into a chair. 

“That bad heart of yours again, old top?” the 
sergeant asked quietly. 

No one ever had heard of anything being the 
matter with Karmack’s heart, but the timely ques¬ 
tion served to cover his emotion. Mrs. Morrow 




56 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


noticed it, but did not wonder thereat Evidently 
Moira had hit these sons of isolation hard, and 
there were in prospect interesting sessions, she 
thought, for Mission House living room that 
winter. 

Seymour decided he had endured enough agony 
for one morning and so, on the plea of police 
routine, started for the post. But the thumbscrew 
of misadventure was to receive one more turn. 
From the door of Mission House the melodious 
voice of Moira carried to him. 

“Oh, Sergeant Scarlet, please do keep an eye 
open for my merry brother along Rideau Street, 
or whatever you call the thoroughfare which passes 
your headquarters.” 

“And I’ll have him paged at the Chateau Laurier 
and ask for him out at Brittania Park,” he man¬ 
aged to answer in terms of the city of her schooling. 
But he had no heart for the jest, mindful of the 
change that soon must come to her happy mood. 

He entered the police shack by the back door 
and looked in for a moment on Olespe. His pris¬ 
oner from Lady Franklin oblivious of his fate, 
seemed to revel in the luxury of the guard room’s 




SILVER AND BLACK 


57 


warmth. The sergeant went through and out the 
front way. 

“Rideau Street indeed,” ran his thoughts. 
“What a name for that streak through the snow in 
Armistice!” 

At that, Moira showed that she knew her Ottawa, 
for Rideau is the street on which face the red brick 
headquarters of the Royal Mounted. Would that 
she had never left the capital! Would that he 
could waft her home again, sacrifice though that 
would be in this ice-bound isolation! 

Straight to A vic’s hut he went and broke the seal 
upon the door, as was his right. Again his eyes 
were upon all that remained of her “merry 
brother.” He wondered about death and the here* 
after and various things that never should enter a 
Mountie’s mind—not when he’s stationed north of 
Sixty-sir. 

Then, suddenly, his eyes seemed to open as 
though a mote had been cast from each. Perhaps 
this was effected by the magic of Moira’s charm 
and beauty. Certainly he saw details that had not 
impressed him the previous afternoon. 

As might a wolverine in defense of her young. 




58 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


he pounced upon the silver fox pelt that lay on the 
sleeping bench beside the murdered youth—lay in 
such a way as to indicate its purchase had already 
been negotiated. He studied the set of the fur and 
sniffed at the tanning on the inner side. His eyes 
widened as he held the beautiful exhibit before 
him and realized the possibilities that were opened 
up by this definite clue. 

“Magic skin,” he murmured half aloud after the 
fashion of men who find themselves often alone in 
the wilderness. “You widen the mystery; may you 
help to close it!” 

Gently, without shrinking from the cold touch, 
he removed the last clutch of O’Malley’s fingers 
from the black fox—probably the pelt of osten¬ 
sible contention. Close examination of this showed 
the same conditions to exist. 

Neither of the foxes had been trapped in the 
present winter; both had been cured at least a year. 

“Magic skin,” he repeated, and breathed a wish 
too fervent for utterance even in the hut where he 
stood alone. 

In the act of wishing, memory put its finger on 
him. There came to mind that famous tale of 




SILVER AND BLACK 


59 


Balzac’s, “The Magic Skin.” The story dealt with 
the hide of an ass which, with every wish invoked 
from it, shrank until the greedy owner was 
threatened with the disappearance of his magic 
possession. 

Perhaps Seymour had best cease wishing. But 
he recalled he had a pair of magic skins in hand; 
grew defiant of the venerable myth, and wished 
again, more fervently even than before that it 
would fall to his lot to solve the deepened mystery 
of the Oliver O’Malley murder. 

Opening the pea jacket of his winter uniform, he 
tucked both furs beneath his tunic. Closing and 
resealing the hut, he strode back to the police cabin. 
Had he intended to appropriate the silver and black 
treasures for his own gain, he scarcely could have 
hidden them more carefully. 




CHAPTER VI 


REGARD FOR THE LAW 

Nowhere in the civilized world, perhaps, is 
there more respect paid to the coroner and his in¬ 
quests than in the Dominion of Canada. This re¬ 
gard is not confined to the settled provinces, but 
reaches beypnd the Arctic Circle even to the 
farthermost post of the Royal Mounted in lati¬ 
tude 76—Ellesmere Island, on the edge of the 
Polar Sea. This afternoon in Armistice was be¬ 
ing devoted to the ancient formality of the law. 

As one of the miners, brought in by Constable 
La Marr from Prospect to serve as juryman, put it 
in half-hearted protest to Seymour: 

“You red coats would hold an inquest at the 
North Pole if word came to you that some one was 
violently dead up there.” 

In his capacity as coroner, Sergeant Seymour 
first called the inquest over Mrs. Olespe, whose 
Eskimo name was too complicated with gutterals 

for English pronunciation. Upon chairs and one 

60 


REGARD FOR THE LAW 


61 


of the bunks in the living room of the post sat the 
jury—the three gold hunters from Prospect and 
Factor Karmack. At a table beside his superior 
was Constable La Marr, acting as clerk of court. 

The prisoner, more stolid than sullen, was 
brought in from the guard room and planted on 
another of the bunks beside Koplock, the inter¬ 
preter who regularly served the Arctic Traders. 

Seymour’s first difficulty was to make certain 
that Olespe understood the warning that had been 
given him at the time of his arrest, for he had not 
entirely trusted the ability of the volunteer trans¬ 
lator who had served him up North. 

‘‘Ask him if he knows who the Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police are,” was the first address to the 
interpreter. 

There followed verbal explosions back and 
forth. 

“Olespe says they are the rich men of the 
country,” reported the interpreter. 

Shrugging his shoulders over the apparent hope¬ 
lessness of the situation, Seymour tried again: 
“Ask him what he thinks the police came into the 
country for.” 




62 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“To make us unhappy,” came the report 
presently. 

“In what way—unhappy?” 

“By not let us shoot at what is ours to shoot 
and which we can hit.” 

Feeling that he was making progress, the ser¬ 
geant got to the vital point. “Ask him what I said 
to him when I put him under arrest?” 

“He says,” translated the interpreter, “you told 
him he’d get hurt if he talked too much.” 

Seymour decided to let it go at that and led the 
way to the outbuilding used as morgue. There 
Olespe identified the remains of his wife, which 
had been sledded so many snowy miles because 
there was no possibility of finding a white jury 
nearer. The Eskimo added indifferently what was 
translated into “She no good wife.” 

Back in the station the sergeant told of his in¬ 
vestigations at the scene of the crime, listed pos¬ 
sible witnesses and summarized their version of a 
tragedy all too common among the Eskimo who are 
prone to the menage a trois. The jury promptly 
brought in a verdict against Olespe, and Seymour, 
in his capacity of magistrate, held him to trial. 




REGARD FOR THE LAW 


63 


They were ready then for the second case of the 
day, the formal inquiry into the death of Oliver 
O’Malley. As Karmack was to be the most im¬ 
portant witness, a change was made in the jury by 
substituting for him the recently arrived mission¬ 
ary. With these four and his constable clerk, 
Seymour went down the trail to the hut which Avic 
had occupied. That Karmack elected to stick by 
the stove at the post until the jury returned caused 
the coroner-sergeant secret rejoicing. He saw to it 
that La Marr did not enter the hut. The jury, 
seeing the interior for the first time, did not miss 
the fox-pelt clews which he had appropriated that 
morning. 

Karmack and the Eskimo relative who had 
loaned Avic the hut, gave the only testimony. This 
the jury held sufficient on which to find a verdict 
against the fox hunter and when the fact had been 
duly recorded the coroner’s court was declared 
closed. 

The saddest task of the day was at hand—one 
from which these strong men shrank, but which 
none was ready to shirk. Presently a strange pro¬ 
cession came up the trail from the hut of tragedy. 




64 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


In the lead was the police team of malamutes, with 
La Marr beside the foremost dog, holding him by 
leash to a dignified pace. They drew a sled carry¬ 
ing a blanketed burden. This vehicle Seymour 
steadied with the aid of a gee-pole. The prospec¬ 
tors and Harry Karmack brought up in the rear 
with bowed heads. 

The way led, naturally, to the newly opened 
Mission House at the door of which Morrow met 
them. The dogs were unhitched and taken away by 
La Marr. The others picked up the sled and car¬ 
ried it into one of the bedrooms. From another 
room could be heard stifled sobs and words of 
comfort. Moira O’Malley knew, then, that her 
sisterly rush into the Frozen North, whatever its 
real object, had been in vain. The missionary’s 
wife had broken the news of death without the real 
detail and now was comforting her. 

On returning to the post, Seymour was momen¬ 
tarily surprised to see that the police dog team had 
been hitched to another sled—this one lightly 
loaded. The native hostler was holding them in 
waiting. Inside he found La Marr pacing the floor 
like some animal tenant of a zoo. 




REGARD FOR THE LAW 


65 


“Where away, Charlie?” he asked. 

“After Avic. I’m just waiting for you to issue 
the warrant. You promised me the chance at 
him, you must remember.” 

“But why to-night?” 

The constable gave him an impatient glance. “I 
can make that Eskimo camp on Musk-ox to-night; 
I’ll be that far on my way. Haven’t we lost time 
enought through my mistake?” 

It took but a moment for Seymour to issue the 
warrant charging one Avic, Eskimo, with the mur¬ 
der by strangulation of Oliver O’Malley, which was 
in accord with the verdict. 

“Remember the motto of the Force, young fel¬ 
low,” he cautioned as he handed over the document. 

La Marr stuffed it into a pocket underneath his 
parkee. 

“Aye—get me man!” 

“Not that,” said his superior with a frown. 
“It’s ‘Never fire first!’ See that you bring Avic 
back alive. There’s more depends on that than 
you know.” 

The constable looked startled. “You don’t 




66 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


mean- Why it’s an open and shut case. The 

coroner’s jury-” 

“Bring Avic back alive, that’s all. Good 
luck.” 

La Marr squared himself for a formal salute 
and went out into the gathering dusk. He had his 
orders. 






CHAPTER VII 


WANTED-AN ESKIMO FOX 

After the excitement attending his return from 
the North patrol, the short winter days and the far 
longer nights passed slowly for the 0. C. of 
Armistice detachment, now reduced to commanding 
himself. One week—two weeks—part of a third 
had been crossed off the calendar without any word 
coming from his man-hunting constable. Seymour 
wasn’t exactly worrying yet, but he was beginning 
to wish he had not been so generous about giving 
young La Marr this chance to redeem himself. 

Above all else he desired the custody of Avic, 
the fox hunter. The body of the accused Eskimo 
would not satisfy him; no more would a report of 
his death. Nothing would do but Avic in the 
quick. 

Often in the endless evenings, while intermit¬ 
tent blizzards raged about the shuttered windows, 
he would take out the black and silver pelts. From 

various angles he would argue their bearing on the 
67 


68 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


case. More than ever was he assured that they 
were not of recent trapping. The fur was that of 
animals which had been through a long, easy 
winter—one when rabbits had been plentiful. This 
was not a rabbit winter on the arctic prairies east 
of the Mackenzie. 

These particular foxes had been trapped in the 
early spring, or he was no judge of fur quality. 
That this spring had not been the previous one was 
shown by the seasoned state of the tanning. How¬ 
ever, this tanning did not appear to be Eskimo 
work, but that of Indian squaws further south. 

Every Eskimo has a flock of cousins. He had 
visited several in the immediate vicinity who 
claimed more or less of that relationship to the 
missing Avic. He had examined the work: of 
their women on furs. A pronounced difference in 
process seemed evident to him. 

The film of mystery brought into the O’Malley 
murder by his own knowledge of Eskimo stran¬ 
gling had been intensified into a shroud by his 
study of the exhibits he had secreted. Yet, specu¬ 
late as he would, there was no other apparent line 
of suspicion than that of the native’s guilt. He 




WANTED—AN ESKIMO FOX 


69 


was at loss how to proceed until he had questioned 
the man for whom the warrant had been issued. 

Each time he looked at the pelts, one outstanding 
fact came to mind: 

No Eskimo ever held a pelt, after his woman 
had cured it, longer than it took to get to the 
handiest trader. It was against all rhyme and 
reason that two fox pelts, worth many times their 
weight in gold, would remain in the hands of a 
ne’er-do-well like Avic so long after they were 
marketable. How, then, had the native come by 
them? 

Under ordinary circumstances—rather, under 
the amity of suffer-isolation-together which had ex¬ 
isted prior to the tragedy, he might have gone to 
Harry Karmack with his problem. At least, the 
factor could have given him an expert’s opinion as 
to when the skins had become pelts by virtue of 
trapping and tanning. 

But a breach yawned between the two—one un¬ 
wittingly caused by the fair addition to the lim¬ 
ited population of ^rmistice. It wasn’t an open 
one, so far, but both knew that it existed and 
bridging it was the last thought of either. They 




70 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


were unadmitted rivals for the favor of Moira 
O’Malley. Anyone who knew the man, could have 
read the sergeant’s interest in his countenance. 
Contrary to winter practice of toilers of the trails, 
his face had been clean shaved from the morning 
after La Marr’s departure. The trader, on his 
part, showed intensity of his heart-hurt by count¬ 
less little attentions to the young woman. 

The unfortunate brother had been laid away 
upon the highest knoll near the camp after a simple 
service conducted by Rev. Morrow. The girl had 
held up under her bereavement with a courage that 
commanded all their admiration. No hint of the 
real cause of Oliver’s death had reached her, so 
guarded had been the four resident whites who 
knew. From the Eskimo, of course, she learned 
nothing. She had accepted the report of an “acci¬ 
dent of the Arctic” and had asked no embarrassing 
questions as to details. The finality of death 
seemed to suffice; nothing else mattered. 

A week after the funeral, a stranger would not 
have known from her manner that suddenly she had 
been deprived of one of her dearest relatives. She 
never spoke of having a philosophy of life, but 




WANTED—AN ESKIMO FOX 


71 


something of the sort seemed to sustain her. Her 
whole behavior indicated that she was determined 
not to make others unhappy with her personal 
grief. They all had their lives to live in a location 
that made life difficult. Moira O’Malley would do 
her utmost to make the winter as happy as might 
be. She did not even ask if it were not possible to 
send her “Outside,” now that the reason for her 
presence had been removed by Fate. 

Harry Karmack, bearing a book to Mission 
House in the hope that gloomy thought might be 
diverted thereby, had been the first of the rivals to 
discover her mental attitude. He had been prompt 
to act on his important discovery. Besides the vol¬ 
ume, he left an invitation to dinner for the girl 
and her hosts. Sergeant Russell Seymour, official 
head of the tiny community, was not among those 
present, having received no invitation. 

Now, this was a breach of camp etiquette which 
could not be overlooked. Far worse than the cut 
direct, it was nearly as much an insult as a blow in 
the face. When a handful of whites are segregated 
in a bronze man’s country, they naturally cling to 
each other as they do to the “alders.” Everyone 




72 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


possibly within the pale is invited to everything 
that approaches a function. Even squaw-men are 
asked to attend if they retain a semblance of pre- 
sentability. 

There was no possible question that Factor Harry 
Karmack’s dinner was a function. Although it had 
never been mentioned by Moira or the Morrows, 
the sergeant had all the details. These had been 
relayed by his native hostler who had them direct 
from the Arctic’s interpreter, the latter having acted 
as butler for the all-important occasion. The meal 
had been served in courses, mind you, for the first 
time in the history of the camp. The factor’s store 
of delicacies, even to the tinned plum pudding, 
intended for the Christmas feast, had been freely 
broached. 

Seymour could not hope to equal such a spread 
from police rations, but he was not to be outdone 
in hospitality. Miss O’Malley and the Morrows 
had accepted his invitation to a sour-dough 
luncheon. The factor had not accepted for an ex¬ 
cellent reason that you probably can imagine. 

The three from Mission House were coming this 
very noon and the sergeant had been occupied part 




WANTED—AN ESKIMO FOX 


73 


of the morning correcting the haphazard house¬ 
keeping of quarters. In fact, they had come, as 
was attested by the knocking upon the front door. 

More lovely than ever Moira seemed to him as 
she returned a smile to his enthusiastic greetings. 
She was dressed to-day entirely in white, the first 
time he had ever seen her in anything but black. 

“What a snow bird you are, Moira!” he ex¬ 
claimed, almost forgetting to greet the missionaries. 

“In that case, I’m relieved you’re not packing a 
gun, Sergeant Scarlet.” 

“Not even side arms,” he said, releasing his 
whimsical smile. “I’m the one that’s wounded— 
fluttering. Put your wraps in the tent, all of you, 
and I’ll put you to work.” 

For the first time they noticed the stage-setting he 
had created for his social bow. Every stick of 
furniture had been removed and the floor covered 
with reindeer moss, gray, soft and fragrant. Two 
reserve sleds, padded with outspread sleeping bags, 
were evidently intended to serve as seats. The 
“tent” to which he had referred them was a drape 
of canvas over the door leading into his own room. 
About the hearth were scattered pots, pans and 




74 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


dishes of tin. The fireplace glowed like a camp 
fire permitted to grow dim for culinary service. 

“So this is what you meant by a sour-dough 
party,” observed Mrs. Morrow, her voic.e betraying 
her enthusiasm over the idea. 

“Wonder if I’m hard-bitten enough by now to 
get the idea?” Moira asked them. 

“We’re hitting the trail,” explained the mis¬ 
sionary. “We’ve just pitched camp and are about 
to make muck-muck. As Northwestemers never 
pack grub for idle hands to eat, we’d better strip 
off our coats and get into action.” 

Where the fire glowed the hottest, Seymour 
rigged an iron spit from which he suspended a 
shank of caribou on a wire as supple as a piece of 
string. Beneath, he placed a pan to catch the drip¬ 
pings. To Moira he entrusted a second wire so 
attached that an occasional pull kept the meat 
turning. 

“There’s nothing more delicious than roast 
caribou,” he advised her, “and this is the very best 
way to roast it.” 

Luke Morrow was to attend the broiling of a 
dozen fool-hens—a variety of grouse—which the 




WANTED—AN ESKIMO FOX 


75 


sergeant had shot that morning. To Mrs. Emma 
was assigned the task of picking over a mess of 
fiddle-head ferns which, by some magic, he had 
kept fresh since fall. He was certain that, when 
properly boiled, they would produce a dish of 
greens more delicate than spinach. 

“And you, Russell?” queried the girl, for they 
soon had taken to first names, except that she some¬ 
times called him “Sergeant Scarlet.” “Because of 
your rank, I suppose you’ll merely boss the job 
and eat twice as much as anyone else.” 

He did not answer, but fell to his knees beside 
the open mouth of a flour sack. With the aid of 
water and an occasional pinch of baking powder, 
he quickly mixed a wad of dough. Greasing a 
gold-pan with a length of bacon rind, he filled it 
with the dough and stood it up facing the fire. 

“I’m baking bannock,” he answered Moira’s 
quizzical look. “When the outside is browned, 
I’ll toss it like a pancake, and soon we’ll have a 
better bread than mother ever made.” 

The primitive feast at last was ready and they 
fell upon it seated tailor-fashion upon the moss. 
The caribou was so tender, remarked Rev. Morrow 




76 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


in complimenting the fair spit attendant, that you 
could put your finger through it. 

“Don’t waste time putting anything through it 
but your teeth,” remarked their host. 

Later, when they had turned to moss berries and 
condensed “cow,” provided as a typical desert, 
Moira expressed regret that Seymour’s attractive 
young constable was not present to share the feast. 

“Have you heard anything from La Marr, Sey¬ 
mour?” asked the missionary. 

“Not a word.” 

Something in his tone startled the girl. “Has he 
gone on a dangerous mission?” she asked. “Are 
you worried about him?” 

The sergeant shook his head. “He’s one of the 
trail-boys and will find others to stand by if he’s in 
trouble.” And after a moment’s silence, he 
quoted: 

“The cord that ties the trail-boys has lashed 
Them heart to heart; 

No stage presents their joys, no actors 
Play their parts; 

Their struggles are seldom known, because 
Through wilds untrod 
These daring spirits roam where there is 
Naught but God.” 




WANTED—AN ESKIMO FOX 


77 


The spell of silence that followed his pronounce¬ 
ment of the Deity was rudely broken by a hammer¬ 
ing on the outer door. So peremptory was the sum¬ 
mons that Seymour sprang to his feet, crossed the 
room and flung the door open, only to start back 
in amazement. 

“Avic of the foxes, by all that’s holy!” he ex¬ 
claimed. 

Framed in the doorway, his small eyes peering 
from a strained face out of the wolverine hood of 
his parkee, the fugitive Eskimo stood alone. In¬ 
stead of handcuff’s on his wrists, he held a rifle 
across his breast. 




CHAPTER VIII 


THE HERO FUGITIVE 

As the sergeant moved forward intent upon 
seizing the rifle, the huge, raw-boned Kogmollyc 
came into the room with a bound that carried him 
well over the threshold. The move had every ap¬ 
pearance of an attack of one demented; but be¬ 
fore Seymour could grapple with him the lack 
of hostile intent was made manifest. 

The rifle Avic carried was thrown regardlessly 
to the floor. With a snarl inhuman, the Eskimo 
threw himself down beside the platter of caribou 
roast. The odors of cooked food had proved too 
much for racial restraint. Hunger had brought on 
the precipitate action. 

For several minutes, Seymour and his guests 
stood and watched the fugitive with amazement. 
He went at the deer shank after the fashion of a 
starving malamute. Sinking his teeth into the suc¬ 
culent meat, he tore out great mouthfuls which he 

swallowed without chewing. At first growls were 
78 


THE HERO FUGITIVE 


79 


interspersed between the bites, but gradually these 
were succeeded by grunts of satisfaction. Once he 
dropped the shank to fill his mouth with bannock, 
but he returned to the meat, sucking at it while yet 
his mouth was crowded. 

Seymour stooped for the gun, recognized it as a 
service weapon and grew suddenly grave. 

“La Marr’s rifle,” he muttered. 

Crossing to the native, he gripped the back- 
thrown hood of the parkee and dragged him, sput¬ 
tering protestingly, to his feet. Avic was consid¬ 
erable to lift, but Seymour was strong and deeply 
aroused. The caribou shank came with the savage, 
held in teeth that demanded a last bite. 

“Here, you dog, drop that!” came gruff com¬ 
mand. “Want to founder yourself?” 

Morrow, too, recognized the danger of overload¬ 
ing a stomach long deprived of food, took hold of 
the meat and tore it away from the Eskimo. 

“But surely they’ll let him eat more later?” 
asked Moira of Mrs. Morrow in a hushed tone. 

Seymour spoke rapidly to the missionary, asking 
him to go to the trading post for the interpreter. 




80 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


In some way, the Eskimo grasped the gist of this 
request. 

“Avic, he speak them Engleesh,” was his sur¬ 
prising statement. 

“Then tell me, where you get this gun?” Sey¬ 
mour demanded. “Where is the red coat that 
owns him?” Unwittingly he had fallen into the 
broken speech of the few natives who know other 
than their own tongue. 

Avic grinned widely, showing ivory fangs, in the 
openings between which shreds of meat still hung. 

“Him hungry all same me,” he said. “Him out 

there-” He gestured to the front door which 

one of the women had closed. “-stay by sled.” 

Something about this reply seemed to tickle the 
native for he laughed until the loose folds of his 
parkee rippled. Neither Seymour nor Morrow 
waited to learn the reason for the mirth, but dashed 
out the door. 

In the furrowed trail they found La Marr, hold¬ 
ing the dogs with difficulty, for they recognized 
they were at trail’s end. The constable was in his 
sleeping bag which was lashed to the koinatik. He 






THE HERO FUGITIVE 


81 


had “stay by sled” for an excellent reason. His 
leg was broken. 

“Well, Charlie, I see you got your man,” said 
Seymour, by way of being cheerful, as he steadied 
the sled which the dogs, under Morrow’s guidance, 
were pulling up the bank into the yard. 

“No, Serg., me man got me.” The response was 
in a voice weak from suffering. 

They carried him into the house, sleeping bag 
and all. Before attempting the painful ordeal of 
extracting the broken, unset limb from the fur- 
lined sack, they fed him the breast of one of the 
fool hens that had been left from the interrupted 
feast. At Seymour’s request, the two women went 
into the kitchen to prepare hot water for the im¬ 
pending operation and a strong broth of which the 
constable would be in need afterward. 

As every missionary in the North is something 
of a surgeon as well as a lay physician, Luke Mor¬ 
row hurried to Mission House for his kit. The 
while, Avic sat on the hearth, contentedly munch¬ 
ing a chunk of bannock which no one had the heart 
to take away from him. 

When the room was cleared, Sergeant Seymour 




82 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


leaned over his constable for a low-voiced ques¬ 
tion. “Is Avic under arrest?” 

“I—I hadn’t the heart, after all he’s done for 
me,” said the injured mountie. “He brought me 
along willingly enough. Didn’t seem the least 
afraid about coming back to the post. Go easy on 
him, sergeant. I’d have been wolf food if it hadn’t 
been for him.” 

The arrest had to be made quickly, before Moira 
chanced back into the room if their kind-hearted 
plot was to be sustained. Seymour got the Eski¬ 
mo’s attention, reminded him that he understood 
English, and went through the formal lines of 
arrest and warning, with the addition that it was 
“for the murder of Oliver O’Malley.” 

“Sure,” said the native, who had learned some 
of his English from American whalers at Herschel 
Island. “I savey. What do? When we go?” 

Seymour did not understand the significance of 
this last question, but hadn’t the time to inquire 
into it. Leading Avic to the guard room, he turned 
him in to make friends with Olespe or not, as 
Eskimo etiquette might decree. 

As he was locking the door of the cell room, 




THE HERO FUGITIVE 


83 


Moira came from the kitchen with 'improvised 
splints and a roll of bandages. She told him 
quietly of her service in France with a Red Cross 
unit and asked permission to help with the 
operation. 

“If I can handle the ether or anything-” 

“Thank you, Moira,” the sergeant interrupted. 
“If Dr. Morrow can use you, I’ll call.” 

The parson-surgeon returned with medicine and 
instrument cases. The sleeping bag was slit down 
its top-center, as the least painful way of removing 
the patient, and gently they carried him to an im¬ 
provised operating table in Seymour’s quarters. 

Morrow proposed an anaesthetic. Even in the 
hands of a skilled surgeon, he declared, the bone¬ 
setting would be most painful; he was just a 
clumsy, well-intentioned amateur. 

“Damme if I’ll go out of my head for just a jab 
of pain,” the doughty constable exclaimed. 

“A whiff of ether will make it easier, Charlie,” 
suggested his superior. “And I’ll whisper a 
secret—Miss O’Malley is ready to administer it. 
She served with us in France.” 





84 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


La Marr’s black eyes gleamed a second in 
appreciation. Then he shook his head decisively. 

“Aye, and that wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. 
“But I’ve smelled the sweet stuff before. When I 
am coming out of it I tell all I know. We’ll take 
no chances of ragging her with babbling about 
Oliver’s murder.” He turned to Morrow. “Let’s 
go, parson, and do your damdest to make me a 
straight leg.” 

The operation took some time, the break being 
a compound requiring a preliminary reduction. 
In this Moira did help and perhaps her presence 
was as potent as anaesthesia. At any rate, not a cry 
escaped the lips of the broken Mountie. 

When the splints finally were fastened and the 
patient refreshed with a cup of fool-hen broth, 
Seymour asked an account of the pursuit and 
accident. 

“If you’ll hand my jacket—wrote report when I 
thought we wouldn’t pull through.” He passed 
over his note book. “I want to sleep now.” 

In the living room, the sergeant bent over this 
blurred scrawl in pencil: 




THE HERO FUGITIVE 


85 


Sert. Seymour , 0. C . 

Armistice Detachment . 

5ir: I have the honor to report: 

Followed fugitive from one camp to another, always 
a jump or two behind him. Seemed not to know where 
he was headed. Ate all my own supplies. Took to 
Eskimo grub. Not so worse after stomach gets used. 
Three days ago, crossing lake on gladed ice. Think it 
was Lake Blarney. Dogs sight a stray wolf. Run 
away. Sled swerves into fishing hole. Me thrown 
into water. Leg broken. Make edge of ice and crawl 
out. Can’t go farther. Dogs catch, kill and eat wolf. 
Come back looking for me, but not near enough so I 
can swing on sled. 

Am freezing to death when come Avic over my trail. 
For why? He makes camp in spruce, builds fire, tries 
to fix leg best he can. Asks, “Where go?” I say 
Armistice. We start. Blizzard comes; grub goes. 
Can’t find cache. May be we get through chewing 
leather,—maybe not. 

Can’t make Avic as O’Malley’s strangler. Gentle 
as a woman with me. He’s not under arrest, but try¬ 
ing his darndest to get me back to post. If blizzard 
holds, neither of us will. Maybe this reach you some 
day. 

Respect., 

C. La Mark, 

Constable R.C.M.P. 

Returning to the improvised hospital to ask a 
question or two needed to fill in gaps in the report, 
Seymour found Moira sitting beside the bed, 
stroking the fevered brow with her strong, white 
hands. She raised one in caution. The patient 
was asleep. 




CHAPTER IX 


THE SKEIN TANGLES 

Partial explanation of Avic’s queer behavior 
came next morning from the Eskimo himself. 
After breakfast, but before Moira had arrived to 
undertake her tour of nursing La Marr, Seymour 
brought the suspect out for examination. The 
Huskie beat him to the first question. 

“When we go?” 

Remembering that this identical inquiry had 
been last voiced by the native the previous after¬ 
noon, the sergeant surmised that it must have some 
significance. 

“Go—go where?” he asked. “Where do you 
expect to go, Avic?” 

The Eskimo made a sweeping gesture in a south¬ 
erly direction. “Up big river,” he mumbled gut- 
terally. “See all world. Ride in smoke wagon on 
land, same like steamboat on water. Live in stone 
house, big as mountain. Good grub. Long sleeps. 

Warm like summer all time.” 

86 


THE SKEIN TANGLES 


87 


“And why should all that good luck come to 
you?” Seymour demanded. “Who’s been putting 
such fool ideas into your head?” 

Avic looked puzzled. There were words in the 
sergeant’s questions that were new to him. The 
officer was about to simplify his query when the 
native blurted out the desired information, evi¬ 
dently sensing that some support was needed by 
his expectations. 

“Nanatalmute boys, she kill white man. Red 
policeman take boys on long trip. Treat her fine, 
them boys. Stay away two, three freeze-up. Come 
back big mens.” 

Seymour groaned inwardly as he grasped the 
reference. The Nanatalmutes were the Eskimo 
who roam the Arctic foreshore to the west of the 
Mackenzie River. Some years ago an abusive 
trader had been killed by two youths of the tribe. 
The authorities of that day decided they should be 
taken “Outside” for trial. The court developed 
certain extenuating circumstances which resulted 
in penitentiary sentences for the pair. In prison, 
they learned to speak English and were given 
mechanical training. At term’s end, they were 




88 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


returned to their band in this land of “midnight 
suns and noonday nights.” 

Theorists held that the two would spread a 
respect for the white man’s greatness and power— 
that their tales of punishment would make the land 
safe for the interlopers of another race. The 
effect, Seymour well knew, had been different. 
The Nanatalmutes had reported that they had been 
royally treated. They described the wonders of 
provincial cities, the thrills of the railway travel, 
the surprising warmth, the palatial house in which 
they lived and countless other details that had im¬ 
pressed their childlike minds. Almost, did this 
mistake of the Law put a premium on white mur¬ 
der, so great was the envy of the two who had 
turned punishment into signal honor. 

So this was Avic’s motive for the murder of 
young O’Malley! Seymour had the native’s word 
that he expected a trip “Outside.” The only im¬ 
plication was practically an admission of guilt. 

The sergeant knew that procedure had changed. 
Courts now were sent into the farthest North and 
trials held at or near the crime’s locale. Convic¬ 
tion in Avic’s case would more likely mean a hang- 




THE SKEIN TANGLES 


89 


mg, with his fellows looking on, than a pleasure 
jaunt anywhere. But of this he did not speak. 
Even this practical admission from the native did 
not convince him that the Huskie alone was 
responsible for the killing. His own deductions 
from the situation in the hut were too well grounded 
and vivid. 

“When we go?” Again came the query from 
the eager native, this repetition sharpened with 
impatience. 

“Not soon,” answered Seymour with a shrug; 
then suddenly turned the inquiry. “Where did you 
get those fox skins you show to the factor?” 

“Avie trap foxes—black and silver,” came the 
ready answer. “Avic fine hunter—ver’ best.” 

“When did you take them from your traps?” 

Seymour considered this question vital. He was 
convinced that the skins had been cured many 
months before. If the native lied about this, he 
would feel certain that his sense of mystery had 
not been misplaced; that there was more behind 
the murder than Avic’s desire for a trip into the 
outside world. 

The Eskimo did not answer at once. He seemed 




90 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


to be counting back. The sergeant gave him bis 
time. 

“Not count weeks and days,” he said at last. 
“Avie trap ’em when the sun go away and the snow 
comes.” 

“You mean just after this winter began?” Sey¬ 
mour wished to guard against any misunder¬ 
standing. 

“This same winter. Avic cousin wife fix ’em 
plenty. Avic bring ’em to post. Much travel 
better than trade-barter from store, so not sell. 
When we go?” 

The sergeant did not press the inquiry at the 
moment. There was a long, long winter ahead of 
them in which he hoped the whole truth would out. 

Several practical reasons decided his next move. 
He put both of the accused natives under open 
arrest. Cell room at police quarters was at a 
premium and food of the sort the natives required 
was difficult to prepare in a white man’s kitchen. 
The health of the prisoners, which must be his con¬ 
cern until the court had passed on their guilt, was 
certain to be better if they lived under native con¬ 
ditions. Friends and relatives were more than 




THE SKEIN TANGLES 


91 


ready to take them in for sustenance allowance he 
granted each. After making them understand that 
they were not to leave camp under penalty of his 
wrath, he turned them loose—a parole, it may be 
said here, that was not broken. 

The happiest weeks in Russell Seymour’s mem¬ 
ory were those that immediately followed. With 
his lone constable bedfast, his presence at or near 
headquarters was required unless some dire 
emergency rose. For once, he thanked his lucky 
stars that nothing happened to break the joyous 
monotony. 

For a week, Moira, in her role of nurse, spent 
most of her days at the post. While she was kind¬ 
ness itself to La Marr and anticipated most of his 
wants, there was no doubt that her real interest was 
in the sergeant. A close friendship sprang up as 
they found many interests in common and ex¬ 
changed life stories with endless detail. At that, 
each had their mental reservations. Nothing the 
girl said, for instance, threw any light on her real 
reason for making her unseasonable and unex¬ 
pected northward dash. And his lips never hinted 
that he was hopelessly in love. 




92 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


In holding back, however, the girl had every 
advantage over the man. She did not need word 
of mouth to tell her the state of his feelings. In¬ 
deed, her worry was over the promptness of her 
own heart, as she confided to Emma Morrow. Was 
propinquity disturbing her judgment, and isolation 
distorting her viewpoint? She feared a mistake 
that might make them both unhappy in the future. 
With a tact that at times made her feel cruel both 
to him and herself, she held the situation level with 
the spirit of friendship. 

Her attitude was made easy by the more active 
wooing of Harry Karmack. The handsome factor 
was not held back by any sense of poverty, which 
is felt perforce by anyone who had little but his 
police pay, a far from princely dole. Karmack 
was as persistent as circumstances and Moira would 
permit; quite too impetuous, in fact, for the com¬ 
fort of one whose interests were divided. 

For a time, the girl was put to it to keep the two 
apart. When they both “made” Mission House 
at the same time, she felt that she was spending 
the evening in a TNT factory. While the men 
never actually clashed physically, she felt certain 




THE SKEIN TANGLES 


93 


that only Seymour’s military discipline kept them 
apart. At last, she was forced to put them on 
schedule, giving each two evenings a week, but with 
understanding that they were not to come even on 
their assigned nights unless she previously sent 
them word. The need for such an expedient could 
scarcely arise “Outside,” but she saw no other way 
out of the difficulty in Armistice, unless she was 
ready to undertake a “for-better-or-worse” de¬ 
cision. And out of this situation grew Russell 
Seymour’s greatest despair. 

The first of his evenings arrived, but no summons 
from the Irish beauty. The next afternoon, with 
Mrs. Morrow, she dropped in at police head¬ 
quarters to cheer the convalescing constable. She 
chose a time when she must have known the ser¬ 
geant was afield exercising the police team of 
malamutes. Also, according to La Marr, she had 
not been indisposed the previous evening. 

A second of Seymour’s scheduled visits passed 
into the discard of time with no word from her, 
and then a third. Being an exponent of direct 
action, Seymour decided to learn the reason for 
this sudden change which, to him, was unexplain- 




94 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


able. He made certain she had not started on her 
daily snow-shoe sprint about the camp, an exer¬ 
cise of which she was fond and at which, for a 
girl, something of an expert. Mid-afternoon, he 
presented himself at Mission House. Luke Mor¬ 
row admitted him; carried his request for an 
interview. 

More anxious than he dared to admit, even to 
himself, the sergeant waited, his fingers crunching 
the fur of his cap as he paced the living room. 
Even before Morrow spoke on returning, he knew 
the beauty’s thumbs were down. The missionary’s 
expression was too sympathetic for any answer. 

“Miss O’Malley asks that you’ll excuse her, 
sergeant,” was his formal report. 

“Is she ill?” 

“Not physically, I’m afraid.” 

Seymour was too dazed for his pride to come 
into action. To be turned away without a word 
didn’t seem fair. What’s more, it wasn’t at all like 
Moira O’Malley. Surely he had the right to know 
his fault—his crime? 

“Thunderin’ icebergs, Luke Morrow! Tell me 




THE SKEIN TANGLES 


95 


what I’ve done to be treated like this?” he de¬ 
manded. 

“I’m sure I can’t imagine, Russell.” 

“Does Madame Emma know?” 

The sky-pilot shook his head. “Moira has not 
mentioned your name to either of us since the last 
evening you spent here.” He hesitated a moment. 
“She does know at last that her brother was mur¬ 
dered—that such was the accident of the Arctic we 
reported to her.” 

“Then she thinks I’m responsible for trying to 
soften that ordeal?” Even as he asked, however, 
he felt certain that there must be something more 
of a misunderstanding than that. 

“I took full responsibility for our not telling her 
the full details,” said Morrow. “You’ll remember 
I first suggested-” 

“Then Karmack must have-” 

He did not finish, but flung himself out the door. 
Before the missionary could utter a word of cau¬ 
tion or advise moderation, Sergeant Seymour was 
plowing the trail for the Arctic’s establishment. 






CHAPTER X 


HARD KNUCKLES 

If it is true, as Kipling says, that “single men in 
barracks don’t grow into plaster saints,” it is 
doubly true of the same in lonely detachment 
shacks of the Royal Mounted scattered about the 
Arctic foreshore. Living week upon week with the 
thermometer at the breaking point, with the momen¬ 
tary sun blackened out for days in swirling snow, 
with a sameness of grub that fairly gnaws the 
appetite, the wonder is that they carry through 
with even members of their own outfit. 

Suddenly mix in with this condition of life an 
attractive, unattached, unexpected white woman 
and you have a yeast more potent than dynamite. 
Let some outsider stir the mixture with the ladle 
of false witness and surely the dough overflows the 
pan. 

As he descended upon the trading post and the 
tricky factor, Russell Seymour was scarcely a staff 

non-com of the Royal Mounted. For the moment 
96 


HARD KNUCKLES 


97 


he was simply a he-man who happened to be en¬ 
cased in the king’s scarlet. Even as he was accus¬ 
tomed to express regard for the rights of others, 
so was he ready to defend his own. A dangerous 
man for the time being and one with an initial ad¬ 
vantage over Karmack, for Seymour’s nerve was 
backed by morality and right. 

He did not trouble to knock on the door of the 
factor’s living quarters, but yanked at the latch¬ 
string. Finding no one in the comparatively 
luxurious living room, he stamped into the store, a 
low-ceilinged 36 x 24. Along one wall were 
shelves on which were displayed the “junk” that 
goes to make an Arctic trader’s stock. Protecting 
these notions, generally more than less unsuited for 
customer’s use, was a counter. From the ceiling 
along the other wall, depended the furs and pelts 
that had been taken in barter and not yet baled for 
shipment to the marts of trade where women would 
pay whatever price the market exacted that they 
might adorn themselves. 

Harry Karmack was there, gloating over some 
fox skins just taken at a fraction of their value 
from one of the Indian hunters who had come up 





98 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


from the South. If he was surprised at the unan¬ 
nounced visit by way of his living quarters, his 
face did not betray it. It was a perfect mask. 

“You’ve been making yourself quite a stranger, 
sergeant,” he said, his tone pleasant enough. “It’s 
the very devil what a havoc woman can make of 
man-to-man friendships up here in the Frozen 
North. Is it possible you’ve come to whimper at 
my success with Moira—Miss O’Malley, the finest 
woman-” 

“Not to whimper, Karmack,” Seymour cut in. 

“Best take your medicine, sergeant. As a mere 
Arctic cop, on next to nothing a year, you never 
had a chance to be anything more to her than an 
entertaining decoration. From now on, you won’t 
even decorate.” 

Under this insult-to-injury, Seymour held him¬ 
self with his stoutest grip. 

“I came,” he declared with an ominous outward 
calm, “to learn just what you said to Miss O’Mal¬ 
ley when you broke our pact of silence about 
Oliver’s murder.” 

“Oh, I said just that—told her as gently as 
possible certain facts. It was high time she knew. 





HARD KNUCKLES 


99 


Did you expect me to ask your august permission 
after what has happened?” 

The factor put away the pelts he had been ex¬ 
amining on Seymour’s entry and, with casual 
manner, came from behind the counter. On the 
open floor of the store the rivals faced each other. 

“You told her more than the facts in this case, 
Karmack,” the sergeant said, his words dragging 
with earnest emphasis. “I’m here to know what 
you said and know I will—even if—I am com¬ 
pelled to bash you up.” 

Karmack laughed harshly, perhaps to show a 
confidence which he just may have felt, knowing 
how long-suffering the Mounties are by hard train¬ 
ing and practice. 

“Threatening violence, eh?” said the factor with 
a sneer. “Thinking of using your police power to 
repair your shattered romance? Dear eyes, what 
a blooming bone to pull!” 

“I’m not here as a policeman and I’ll lay aside 
the tools of my trade.” 

Unhooking the belt that held a holstered revolver 
to his hip, he placed the accouterments upon the 
counter at the end nearest the front door. Beside 




100 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


them he laid a “come along,” a small steel article 
with chain attachment useful in handling refractory 
prisoners. With his long arms swinging loosely at 
his sides, he strode back to face the factor. 

“Now, Karmack, what else did you tell the 
girl?” 

“Perhaps I showed her how careless kind you 
are to Avic, named by the coroner’s jury as her 
brother’s murderer.” The handsome factor was 
enjoying himself. “Of course it would be likely to 
please her, seeing the only suspect yet named 
wandering about the camp at will, living in idle¬ 
ness on your bounty, likely to slope off into the 
snows and never be heard from again.” 

“The Eskimo is under open arrest—regular 
enough under the circumstances. I’ll stand-■” 

Seymour caught himself. He did not need to 
defend his official conduct to this trouble maker. 
Moreover, he felt that Karmack must have gone 
further with his insinuations. The matter and 
manner of Avic’s custody might have carried the 
girl to him in protest, with demand for an explana¬ 
tion; but it was not enough to have brought about 
an utter break without a word. 





HARD KNUCKLES 


101 


“Let’s hear the rest of it, Karmack—the whole 
damnable misrepresentation.” Fingers twitching 
beside the yellow stripe of his trousers showed his 
tension. 

“Perhaps I told her about the foxes—the silver 
and black!” The factor’s tone was triumphant. 

Seymour’s expression was too well schooled to 
betray any surprise at this unexpected thrust. 
“What about the fox pelts?” 

“They disappeared, didn’t they, most mysteri¬ 
ously? They were in the hut when you left it 
under seal the night of your return and Moira’s 
arrival. The hut still was sealed when you took 
the coroner’s jury there the next day, but the pelts 
were not. The jury never saw them. That’s what 
about the fox pelts.” 

Seymour’s lips were as white as the freshly 
drifted snow outside and his voice as cold as the 
temperature when he asked what the factor meant 
to insinuate. 

“Perhaps the kindest interpretation for you,” 
Karmack began with gloating insolence, “is that 
those fox pelts are buying an easy winter for Oliver 
O’Malley’s slayer with an ultimate get-away in the 




102 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


spring. In other words, Seymour, you’re a dis¬ 
grace to the uniform you wear—the first I’ve ever 
met with. You’re a low-down, grafting bribe-taker 
and to show you how I respect-” 

Instead of finishing his tirade, the factor flashed 
out with his right in a vicious upper-cut. Seymour 
sensed rather than saw it coming. Having devel¬ 
oped a cat-like quickness, he might have dodged 
and let the blow slide past; but preferred to take it 
on his jaw of iron. He needed, he felt, the sting 
of it to release for the deserved punishment of his 
detractor all the latent powers within his rangy 
frame. 

At once, the hard-knuckled mill was on—a furi¬ 
ous battle of males, for this session, primitive 
males. Science, if either of them knew aught but 
the rough and tumble tactics of the outlands, was 
forgot. Blows were exchanged with a rapidity that 
must have been beyond the scoring of ring-side ex¬ 
perts had there been any present. In the States, 
thousands pay their tens of dollars to see fights 
that were so little like this one as to seem prim¬ 
rose teas. There was nothing gentle about it. Not 
until Karmack sprawled his length on the rough 






HARD KNUCKLES 


103 


board floor was there the slightest breathing space, 
unless you’d call breathing the insucked breaths 
between clinched teeth that sounded more like ex¬ 
hausts from wheezy locomotives. 

Seymour stepped back to give the factor time 
and space to rise if fight still was left in him. 
Great as was his provocation, he insisted on fighting 
fair. That there are no rules for rough-and-tumble 
made no difference to him. He couldn’t hit a man 
who was down. 

Karmack came up with a surprising show of 
strength, his eyes gleaming dangerously. One of 
these the sergeant closed with a body-wrecking jolt. 
In turn, he was knocked heavily against the counter. 
The sharp edge of this caught him across the small 
of the back, a terrific kidney blow. The surge of 
pain seemed to open the hinges of his knees. 

At that vital moment, when he must have been 
hard put to keep his feet in any event, the factor 
fouled him with a vicious kick on the shin. It was 
inevitable that Seymour go down. In falling, 
though, he managed to lunge his body forward, 
gaining a clutching grip on his opponent’s torso, 
and carrying him along. 





104 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


There on the floor they rolled over and over like 
a couple of polar bears in deadly combat. First 
one and then the other was on top and in position 
to jab. Claret splotches marked their irregular 
course. Fingers tangled and untangled, now in the 
factor’s black mop, then in the sergeant’s brown 
one. The latter’s uniform was tattered; the fac¬ 
tor’s tweeds were shredded. Punishment, however, 
was well distributed and the battle, so far, a draw. 

But this winter, Karmack had held close to his 
store and spent long hours with his pipe; Seymour 
had roamed the open and seared his lungs with the 
vital air of the North. In the end, this difference 
which leather-pushers know as “wind condition” 
told its tale. The factor was rasping when the 
Mountie was still breathing with comparative ease. 
Longer and longer on each turn was the policeman 
holding the uppermost position. 

Suddenly Karmack, underneath, ceased violent 
struggles. It seemed he had weakened. 

“Had ’nough?” demanded Seymour. “Ready 
to tell the girl the truth?” 

For answer, he felt the press of steel against his 
ribs. He realized in a flash that the factor had 




HARD KNUCKLES 


105 


drawn a gnn from some handy concealment and 
that his seconds probably were numbered unless he 
rolled instantly out of range. 

Roll he did just as the pistol growled. 

The bullet grazed a button from his official tunic, 
then thudded into the plasterboard that covered 
the log wall. Next second, with a bone-breaking 
wrench, he twisted the weapon from the trickster’s 
fingers. Scrambling to his feet, he threw down 
upon his opponent, meaning to cover him, just as 
the front door of the store was thrown open. 

With the rush of icy air from without came a 
shrill feminine cry more startling than any previous 
happening of the contest. 

“Don’t shoot!” was the command that followed. 
“Don’t you dare shoot, you uniformed brute!” 

Seymour turned to see Moira glaring at him 
from behind an automatic pistol of her own, a 
blue-black little gun that was held as steady as a 
pointed finger. The sky-pilot up at Mission House 
w r as a pacifist, the sergeant knew. Doubtless he 
had told the girl the direction his anger had taken 
him. 

“At last I believe,” the girl went on, passion in 




106 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


her voice, but not the slightest waver in her aim. 
“Well chosen was the name I gave you. Sergeant 
Scarlet!” 

The stress she gave her nickname for him 
startled Seymour. “Just what do you mean, 
Moira?” he asked, keeping one eye upon the prone 
factor who seemed as startled by the intrusion as 
himself. 

“That I’ve found the murderer of my brother 
and don’t propose to see him claim another victim.” 

So that was what Harry Karmack had told the 
girl. That was why the light of her wondrous eyes, 
had gone out for him. Any added hate of his 
enemy that might have grown from this was lost in 
her statement that she believed. To make certain 
that she considered him guilty, he put the direct 
question. 

“After what I’ve just seen—on top of all that 
was pointed out to me—I’m forced to believe,” she 
said brokenly. “Go, before I take a vengeance that 
is not mine to take, but the Law’s. Go—go!” 

As broken as the gun he flung at Karmack, Ser¬ 
geant Seymour gathered up his sidearms from the 
counter and stalked out of the Arctic’s store room. 




CHAPTER XI 


THE SCARLET SPECIAL 

Ten days after the battle between the sergeant 
and the factor, the quiet of Armistice camp was 
again upset, this time most unexpectedly by the ar¬ 
rival of the ‘"scarlet special.” A corporal of the 
Royal Mounted breezed in by dog team over the 
frozen wastes from far-away Athabaska, the end of 
rail gateway of the North, where English to some 
extent gives place to Cree. 

That he brought no mail—beyond a sealed order 
bag for Sergeant Seymour—showed that the 
special’s visit was as sudden as a telegram. But 
he did carry a late newspaper or two and several 
magazines that gave week-by-week gists of the 
world’s news since Armistice last had heard from 
“Outside,” so his unexpected arrival was more 
than welcome to the whites in the camp. 

To the disappointment of Corporal Gaspard Le 
Blanc, the short, plump but doughty French- 

Canadian who had made the remarkable trip, Sey- 
107 


108 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


mour was not at the post. The morning after the 
fight, a report had reached the detachment that a 
band of Eskimo on Skelly River were destitute. 
With Constable La Marr still convalescing from his 
accident, the sergeant had set out to investigate. 
His return was expected any hour of any day. 

As the orders were sealed, the corporal to open 
them only when assured that something had hap¬ 
pened to the ranking non-com to whom they were 
addressed, there seemed nothing to do but wait. 

Factor Karmack was the first to call at head¬ 
quarters. He met with a cold reception from La 
Marr, who naturally had sided with his superior on 
learning of the aspersion put upon the Force by the 
fur trader’s insinuations in the O’Malley case. 

“I hear there’s a special in from outside,” began 
the factor in his blandest manner. “Hope he had 
a good trip.” 

“Aye, not so bad,” returned the constable, as 
communicative as a seal. 

“By any chance, did he bring any mail for me?” 

“Nothing but police business,—this special.” 

If Karmack was disturbed, he took pains not to 
show it. 




THE SCARLET SPECIAL 


109 


“But surely he brought some newspapers. Might 
I borrow-” 

“I’m sending a spare paper over to Mission 
House,” was the chilly response. “You’d best go 
there for your news, Karmack.” 

The factor made as graceful an exit as any one 
could have asked, nodding pleasantly to the newly 
arrived corporal. Familiar with the usual frater¬ 
nity of life in the land of bared boughs and griev¬ 
ing winds, the genial Gaspard expressed surprise. 

“What the hell how is?” he asked. “You gots 
something on that crow, non?” 

“I don’t like him,” was all La Marr replied, not 
caring to bare his superior’s heart troubles even t© 
one of the Force. 

The corporal, steeled against prying into per¬ 
sonal affairs, asked no further questions. The two 
spent the day pleasantly by the open fire, which 
Avic—the prisoner under open arrest—kept re¬ 
plenished, it happening to be his week for head¬ 
quarters fatigue duty. 

At four in the afternoon, Sergeant Seymour 
mushed in, tired and worn from his long errand 
of mercy. This he had solved by moving the im- 






110 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


provident band to another camp of natives who 
were well supplied with food, the usual procedure 
in a country where it is impracticable to move relief 
supplies in mid-winter. 

His first glance at the features of the corporal, 
who turned out to help him with the dogs, acted 
as a cocktail that banished all fatigue. A strange 
Mountie in quarters could mean only excitement 
of some sort and that was the most joyous tonic 
the sergeant knew. 

Scarcely did he wait to peel off his trail clothes, 
so eager was he to break the seal of the dispatch 
bag. It held but a single sheet of orders—a dis¬ 
patch from the commissioner himself dated at 
Ottawa more than five weeks before. With the two 
subordinates looking on in an interest that dared 
not be put into question form, he read and reread 
the message. The second scanning thereof snapped 
him to his feet. 

“When did you arrive, corporal?” he asked. 

“This morning—early.” 

“Said nothing about what brought you, I hope?” 

A smile flicked the ruddy Canadian face and the 
French shoulders shrugged. “How could I, when 




THE SCARLET SPECIAL 


111 


I know not why they sent me on such a mush of 
the devil?” 

“Karmack was here asking for mail—for the 
loan of papers,” added La Marr. “I told him to 
go to Mission House for his news.” 

“Good enough,” nodded the 0. C. and started 
getting into the uniform which he wore when at the 
detachment. In his absence the tunic had been 
made fairly presentable, with few traces of his 
clash with the factor. “I’m going out for a 
prisoner,” he said at the door. “You boys sit 
tight.” 

Straight across to the store of the Arctic Trading 
Company he stalked, but to meet with disappoint¬ 
ment. Both the store and dwelling of Karmack 
were locked. Even the native interpreter was not 
to be roused. But the sergeant remembered what 
the constable had said about going to Mission 
House for newspapers. Doubtless, the factor was 
there, reading what had happened in the all-alive 
world since last report. It would not surprise him 
to find the four making a news feast out of the un¬ 
expected boon—reading aloud in turn every morsel 




112 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


of type, even to the new advertisements. He quar¬ 
tered to the house of the Morrows. 

“Safe home again, Seymour,” Luke Morrow 
greeted him and dragged him hospitably into the 
living room. “It is well, but I wish you’d been a 
day sooner.” 

Seymour did not trouble to learn what the mis¬ 
sionary meant by his concluding wish, but asked 
at once if Karmack was calling. 

The missionary shook his head, his expression 
one of genuine surprise. 

“Sort of expected to find him—reading papers 
brought in by special,” explained Seymour. 
“La Marr said he had sent some over to you and 
told Karmack to come here for the news.” 

“Why—but—” Morrow was disturbed to a point 
of stammering distress. “The factor was here this 
morning, but he had news of his own. Didn’t he 
leave the keys to the trading post with you police?” 

Seymour in his turn, was aroused. “The keys! 
Why should he leave his keys with us?” 

“He came here shortly before noon,” explained 
the sky-pilot. “Said the scarlet special had brought 
him a summons to Ottawa that could not be denied. 




THE SCARLET SPECIAL 


113 


He meant to ask you people to take charge until his 
relief arrived. His years of pioneer service in the 
North had been rewarded at last, he told us, and 
he was to be made a high official of the Arctic at the 
Ottawa headquarters. Naturally, we rejoiced with 
him.” 

“The nerve of the scamp!” exclaimed the ser¬ 
geant. “The only word the special brought was a 
warrant for his arrest. He has been robbing the 
company for years and they’ve just found him out 
—got the proof. I came to arrest him. He must 
have surmised that the coming of the special meant 
only one thing and decided to make his get-away. 
And howling sun-dogs, this warrant I hold is a se¬ 
cret one! No general alarm has been sent out. 
Can I see Miss O’Malley—perhaps he’s told her 
something of his plans? In the interests of justice, 
after she’s seen the warrant, I’m sure she’ll not pro¬ 
tect him, much as she dislikes me.” 

The missionary seemed stunned. He bent over 
in his chair and cupped his hands over his eyes in 
an attitude of prayer. 

“Good Lord, forgive us for our sins of omis- 




114 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


sion,” Seymour heard him murmur. “We are but 
mortal and the flesh of all mortals is weak. How 
were we to know-” 

“Here, here!” interrupted the sergeant im¬ 
patiently, although he had respect enough for 
prayer. “It’s not your fault that Karmack got 
away or that you let him use Mission House in his 
courtship. You good folks couldn’t have known he 
had done anything wrong. Send for Miss O’Malley 
at once. I’ve no time to lose.” 

Luke Morrow forgot his supplications for pardon 
and sprang to his feet. “No time to lose. You’re 
right. That scoundrel was persuasive and we were 
weak. Karmack took Moira with him, offering her 
safe conduct to her friends and home in British Co¬ 
lumbia. We’ll never forgive ourselves for-” 

But Sergeant Scarlet was gone in too great a 
hurry to close the door behind him. 






CHAPTER XII 


LIVING TARGETS 

Like a Windigo boodie of the sub-Arctic on the 
trail of a craven Cree, Sergeant Seymour pushed 
through the white silence in pursuit of his fugitive. 
If the capture of Harry Karmack, embezzler, 
spurred him officially, the saving of Moira O’Mal¬ 
ley from the fate that seemed in store for her lent 
wings to his snow-shoes. To himself he did not 
deny the fact that the personal interest was the most 
potent. There would be weeks and weeks, if re¬ 
quired, to run down the dishonest trader. Didn’t 
the Royal Mounted always get their man? But 
there were only hours, he sincerely believed, in 
which to spare the most beautiful feminine creature 
he had ever seen a lifetime of humiliation and 
grief. 

This was no night for travel. All the rules of 
Northern trails forbade it. With the spirit ther¬ 
mometer down to sixty-five below, he should have 

been snugly in camp in some snow bank, wrapped 
115 


116 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


in rabbit-skin robes or encased in a sleeping bag, 
with his malamutes snuggled around him. The 
spirit within that enabled him to defy the inexor¬ 
able grip of the frost was the same that had not 
permitted him to delay pursuit’s start an hour. 

Frankly, he would not have gone out that night 
after Karmack had the rascal been escaping alone. 
Considering the factor’s passenger, however, noth¬ 
ing could have kept him at the Armistice detach¬ 
ment post. 

There action had been swift once he had the fell 
news from Luke Morrow. At quarters, he had 
turned over the post to Corporal Le Blanc. He was 
to keep the Arctic company’s trade-room and furs 
under seal; to do no trading except that which the 
welfare of visiting Indians and Eskimos demanded. 
Hardship might be worked if the trusting natives 
came in to exchange their furs for supplies and 
found no mart. The two Eskimo murderers were 
to remain under open arrest unless they displayed 
signs of wanderlust after his departure. La Marr 
was to take no chances with his injured leg, the cor¬ 
poral to make such patrols as were absolutely neces¬ 
sary. Thus, like a good commander, he prepared 




LIVING TARGETS 


117 


for the all-too-many eventualities of winter travel. 

Morrow had followed him to police quarters al¬ 
most at once with an offer of the Mission House 
malamutes for the stern chase—stem in more than 
one sense of the word. Knowing that both the 
police teams were worn out—the one of the scarlet 
special and the other of mercy’s errand—Seymour 
had accepted the mission’s team, although he pre¬ 
ferred always to drive his own dogs when they were 
in the least fit. 

From Morrow, he had details of Karmack’s 
morning visit which had resulted in Moira’s unfor¬ 
tunate decision to attempt to go “Outside” under 
his escortage. Karmack had said he meant to take 
the shortest course to the Mackenzie on the frozen 
surface of which he expected to find a more or less 
traveled trail. He would be delighted to have 
Moira’s company. She could drive her own team 
and would find it easy to follow his own huskies. 
They would have the Arctic’s interpreter, a famous 
musher, to break trail and keep them on the right 
track. It would be an express trip, he had de¬ 
clared, and she would find herself with her friends 
before she knew it. 




118 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“Emma and I tried to dissuade her from taking 
the chance,” the missionary had told Seymour with 
tears in his voice, “but the temptation was too much 
for the girl. We assured her she would be welcome 
to spend the rest of the winter, but she wanted to de¬ 
part the scene of the tragedy.” 

At the moment, Seymour had wondered how 
much her ill-founded disappointment in him had 
affected her decision. And this thought kept re¬ 
curring to him now as he followed the double sled 
trails. It clinched his determination to overtake 
them at the earliest possible moment. 

Fortunately there was no wind to-night and he 
had nothing to contend against but the bitterness 
of the cold. He was traveling “light” with caribou 
pemmican, hardtack and tea as the major contents 
of his grub sack. The mission dogs were running 
as if out for an exercise jaunt; but the air was too 
frigid to permit much riding for their driver. 
Often he had to hold them back that he might not 
become absolutely winded. 

Already he had proved one lie in Karmack’s 
statement to the girl and the missionary, as re¬ 
ported with undoubted truthfulness by the latter. 




LIVING TARGETS 


119 


The fugitive was not headed directly for the 
Mackenzie River, the natural highway “Outside.” 
That would have taken him by the Wolf Lake trad¬ 
ing and mission station. Even in the night, the ser¬ 
geant recognized the ridge they were following and 
that there had been a sharp veering to the south¬ 
west. The course would bring them to the river 
far from any outpost and doubtless Karmack, if 
he got away, would continue to avoid all such on the 
way up river until certain he had out-distanced 
any pursuit. 

The possibility that already the girl regretted her 
hasty decision to leave the Morrows occurred to 
him as a possible reason for Karmack’s change of 
course. If she had threatened to give up the at¬ 
tempt upon reaching Wolf Lake, the factor, natu¬ 
rally, would give the other missionaries a wide 
berth. But cheering as was the idea, he soon dis¬ 
missed it. Moira O’Malley was not the sort to 
turn back on an endeavor, and it was improbable 
that there had been any alarming overtures from 
Karmack so early in the wild project. He was 
clever, was Handsome Harry, and, by his own 
boast, experienced with women. He would wait 




120 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


until he had completely won her by the countless 
services that would crop up on a trip of this sort. 

All the more reason, then, for Seymour to over¬ 
take and capture before they got beyond reach of 
return to Armistice. Again and again his goad of 
caribou hide snapped near the ears of his team. 
The panting animals flattened their bodies while 
he rode the sled in defiance of the frost. 

Soon after break of day, belated in this latitude 
and season, came his reward. In the course of 
the night’s sled run he had worked out of the bare 
tundra country of the foreshore into a region 
splotched here and there with brush. Now he saw 
rising from one of the clumps ahead a spiral of 
smoke marking someone’s breakfast fire. 

No difficulty was there in guessing whose fire— 
not in the Great Barrens! Evidently, from the dis¬ 
tance covered, Karmack had driven far into the 
night, but, none the less, did not mean to be de¬ 
prived of an early start on the second day of his 
dash for freedom. 

Seymour dragged the mission dogs to a halt a 
mile away from the fugitive’s camp. When rival 
teams meet on the snows, they dash at each others’ 




LIVING TARGETS 


121 


throats with a chorus of yowls and all the strength 
of their respective masters is required to keep them 
apart. The sergeant expected to be engaged other¬ 
wise than clubbing malamutes when he got to that 
breakfast fire. 

Accordingly, he untraced the team and chained 
them to the sled in such a way that any attempt to 
move that vehicle on the part of the animals 
leashed to one side would immediately meet with 
resistance of the dogs on the other side. Such an 
anchorage he had tried before and proved effective; 
in fact, it is about the only one possible in the open 
snow-fields. 

Tossing each of the seven in the team a frozen 
fish, he removed his parhee, exposing to ready 
grasp the revolver at his hip. From its deer-hide 
case, he unlimbered his rifle as a precaution against 
being “potted” in case his approach was discovered 
at too great a distance for small-arm accuracy. 
Then he moved swiftly forward, the tails of his 
“webs” leaving a wake of flying snow. 

Evidently, the three of the flight party were at 
breakfast, for he bore down on the temporary camp 
without alarm. Soon he was near enough to hear 




122 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


the dogs of their two teams snarling over the morn¬ 
ing meal. Noting that they were tethered between 
him and his objective, he circled for a safer ap¬ 
proach. 

Almost was he upon the camp when he saw 
Karmack departing in the direction of the dogs. 
Easily could he have picked off the accused embez¬ 
zler with his rifle. But- 

“Never fire first!” 

With the real slogan of the Royal Mounted he 
admonished himself under his breath. 

Nearer over the crunching snow he crept on that 
clumsy-looking but most effective footgear which 
man may have adopted from the snow-shoe rabbit. 
Now he could make out the front of a pup tent, 
doubdess thrown up for the protection of the beauty 
of the party. Koplock, the Arctic’s interpreter, 
could be seen packing utensils for the start. The 
girl was not in sight. 

Two minutes more would have brought him into 
camp and everyone under cover of his rifle. Then, 
from out of the tent, came Moira, facing him! 

He heard her cry out; could not determine 
whether from surprise at the unexpected appear- 





LIVING TARGETS 


123 


ance of a human stalking out of the white solitude 
or as a warning to her companions. 

Of these, Karmack whirled at first alarm, but the 
native did not look up from his task. Evidently 
the factor recognized the unwelcome visitor, for 
he started back with a rush, drawing his automatic 
as he ran. 

“Never fire first!” the voice of training whispered 
as the sergeant hurled himself toward his foe. 

Karmack’s pistol barked. A bullet whizzed past 
the policeman’s ear, a narrow miss but as good as 
a mile. 

Now came the King’s turn. Upward to his shoul¬ 
der swung the gun with which Seymour had won 
many a target match. In a second, it seemed, Kar¬ 
mack must bite the snow. 

But the gun never was fired. Into direct range 
between the two men, Moira O’Malley had flung 
herself, a tall, fur-clad figure. The human target 
of the scoundrel momentarily was blanketed. 
What mattered it that the school girl of Ottawa was 
pointing an automatic as steadily as she had held 
it upon him in the trade room that time back in 




124 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


Armistice. Sergeant Scarlet could not fire upon an 
innocent woman. 

He barely saw a whiff of smoke leave the mouth 
of her pistol, scarcely heard what seemed a double 
report, when a burning sensation along one temple 
and across the side of his scalp threw him back¬ 
ward to a fall on his side. 

And as he toppled into the snow, to lie inert and 
helpless, it seemed to him that the glorious girl 
lunged forward to the same cold couch that was his. 

Was it possible that, by some involuntary pres¬ 
sure on the trigger, he had fired at Moira O’Malley? 
In the paralytic clutch of the moment he could not 
answer the heart-burning question. 

Consciousness must have fled Seymour’s mind 
for just a moment. With its return, he realized 
that Karmack was shouting excited orders to Kop- 
loek, the interpreter. Haunted by that last glimpse 
of Moira tumbling forward into the snow, the ser¬ 
geant tried to raise himself for another look over 
the tragic stage. Only his brain seemed awake; 
body muscles refused to respond to its demand. 
He could only lie there, staring into the dingy, low- 
hung sky, and listen. 




LIVING TARGETS 


125 


“Very bad affair this one, boss,” he heard. 

The voice was Koplock’s and the conversational 
tone, which carried through the frosty stillness 
plainly, indicated that the interpreter and the fac¬ 
tor stood together. 

“The red-coat killed her firing at me, you can see 
that and swear to it, can’t you?” Karmack de¬ 
manded. 

“But no, Meestair Karmack,” came from the 
native. “She is hit from the back. It was your 
bullet that lay her low. Koplock swear to nothing 
but the truth.” 

An imprecation sprang from the factor’s lips, 
but scarcely registered with the listening sergeant. 
He was too filled with rejoicing that no involuntary 
shot of his had struck her down. 

“It don’t matter,” he heard Karmack grumble. 
“Go have a look at the policeman. If only she 
killed him-” 

Seymour heard the crunch of snow-shoes; knew 
that the native was coming toward him. What 
should he do? He was convinced that his wound 
was only a “crease”; hoped that the muscular 





126 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


numbness would pass. To feign death under the 
native’s inspection was his first impulse. 

But to that plan, several objections immediately 
presented themselves. The mission-schooled 
Eskimo would be hard to deceive with no more con¬ 
vincing evidence than a bullet graze. Again, there 
was no telling how long the paralysis that gripped 
him would continue. No one could lay out in to¬ 
day’s temperature for any length of time without 
freezing. 

He recalled that Koplock had always shown a 
dog-like devotion to him; undoubtedly was grateful 
for the fees which Seymour had paid for his ser¬ 
vices as interpreter for the government. Certainly 
the native was greatly disturbed by what had just 
happened. To throw himself on the Eskimo’s 
mercy held some risk but more chance of ultimate 
safety than attempting to play ’possum. 

In the moment of the bronze man’s crossing, the 
sergeant had argued this out and come to a de¬ 
cision. 

His eyes were closed when Koplock stood over 
him and touched his body with the toe of his muck- 
luck. The native stooped for a close examination 




LIVING TARGETS 


127 


of the head wound. Seymour’s eyes opened, his 
lips moved in a whisper. 

“Stand by your king,” he said. “Tell Kar- 
mack I’m dead, but don’t go on with him.” 

Koplock assented with a wink and quickly 
straightened. 

“Him passed out,” Seymour heard him call to 
his employer. “Center shot.” 

“Not so bad,” came the unfeeling response from 
the factor. “That’s what he gets for edging into 
my affairs. Come here, you.” 

The sergeant heard the native shoeing back and 
then came the calloused instructions of a hard- 
pressed fugitive who could not afford to lose his 
head in such an emergency. 

“I must mush on with my dogs,” said Karmack. 
“Take the girl back to Armistice on her sled. Tell 
them—oh, make up any story you like; you’ll do 
that anyhow. I’ll be where they’ll never get me.” 

“What do with him?” Koplock asked, pointing 
toward Seymour. 

“The cop—let the wolves bury him.” 

Five minutes or so after Karmack’s “Mush— 




128 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


mush on!” had signalled his continuation of flight, 
Koplock again was at the side of the sergeant. 

“Him very bad mans, that Factor Karmack,” he 
said as he began a vigorous massage of Seymour’s 
limbs. For a moment he worked vigorously to 
restore circulation and the officer was able to re¬ 
ward him by twitching his fingers. 

“Big joke, this on Karmack,” went on the native, 
chuckling gutturally. 

“Where’s the joke with Miss O’Malley dead?” 
Seymour demanded, as the Eskimo turned him over 
to knead his spine. Koplock was too much engaged 
in his operations to reply readily, then: 

“The most big joke him is Miss O’Malley she am 
not dead but just some hurt like you.” 

The effect upon Seymour was magical. Power 
returned to his muscles as suddenly as it had de¬ 
parted from them. Of his own will, he turned over 
and sat up in the snow. With the Eskimo’s aid, 
he got to his feet. He glanced anxiously over the 
battle scene, but could see nothing of the beloved 
figure. His eyes put the question. 

“Koplock carry her to tent,” answered the native. 

“Good boy, Koplock!” 




LIVING TARGETS 


129 


Slowly, for his legs were numb, and with the 
native’s grip to steady him, Seymour walked to the 
tent. There the girl lay wrapped in a rabbit-skin 
robe, gazing open-eyed at the roof, upon her flushed 
face an expression of surprise, as if she did not 
understand just what had befallen her. 

“Thank heaven you’re alive!” cried the Mountie, 
staring down at her, his eyes brimming with tears 
of rejoicing. 

“You—you!” she murmured. “Where is Mr. 
Karmack?” She seemed afraid and her wide eyes 
accused him cruelly. 

Seymour sat down beside her. “After nearly 
murdering you, Mister Karmack has continued his 
flight,” he said. “You and I will thrash this out 
once and for all, Moira. The wound of his shot 
in your back will have to wait until I’ve cleared 
your mind of certain apprehensions.” 

She turned from him, but he felt certain that she 
would listen. First he assured her of his great 
liking for her brother, a mutual regard, he be¬ 
lieved. Then he recounted every pertinent detail 
of the brutal strangling with the Ugiuk-line, not 
forgetting the evidence of the two too-well-curried 




130 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


fox pelts. Frankly, he set forth Karmack’s jealous 
motive in casting her suspicions upon himself. 
Her own misinterpretation of the scene she had 
interrupted in the trade room was contended with 
a convincing account of the entire struggle, ending 
with Karmack’s attempt to shoot him. To prove 
the factor’s real reason for flight, he read her the 
warrant which the “scarlet special” had brought 
from Ottawa. 

“And to-day,” he concluded, “while trying again 
to kill me, he shot you instead.” 

Slowly the girl turned her averted gaze. With a 
glad throbbing of heart, he saw she was convinced. 

“And I believed—a thief,” she mourned. “I 
started for the provinces with him that I might 
the sooner have the law on you. My heart told me 
—why, why didn’t I listen—that it could not be 
you. Oh, Sergeant Scarlet, can you ever forgive 
me?” 

“Forgiven already—and forgotten, all but Kar¬ 
mack’s devilish part,” he assured her. 

Now, for the first time, the girl noticed the gash 
across his scalp. “But you—you’re wounded. 
How-who?--” 






LIVING TARGETS 


131 


“It’s just a scratch,” said he cheerfully. 
“Knocked me out for a bit, you know, but all right 
now. The how and who don’t matter. Suppose we 
see how slightly you’re hurt?” 

Koplock stood in the tent door with a pan of 
boiling water, heated at Seymour’s orders. The 
sergeant took this from him and sent him to bring 
in the police team. Then, with deft fingers, he set 
about an examination of what proved to be a shoul¬ 
der wound. 

To his great relief, he found that the bullet had 
gone entirely through, leaving a clean bore through 
the muscles, with no need for probing. The girl’s 
coma, so like death as to deceive the excited factor, 
evidently had been from shock. Applying a first- 
aid dressing, he bundled the injured shoulder 
against the cold. 

Koplock, with fingers none too gentle, looked 
after Seymour’s own injury and bandaged it with 
material from the police emergency kit. Then they 
gathered brush from the thicket and built a rousing 
fire before the tent. 

That they would make no attempt to move that 
day was Seymour’s first decision. The girl, he felt, 




132 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


needed rest after the shock of her wounding more 
than immediate attention from one with more sur¬ 
gical experience than he possessed. Whether to 
take her back to Armistice or across country to 
Wolf Lake required more consideration. The fact 
that there was a missionary surgeon at the lake who 
had more skill than Luke Morrow finally decided 
him. Moreover, by going to the trading post, he 
would be much nearer the frozen highway of the 
Mackenzie over which his pursuit of Karmack 
must continue. 

In the afternoon, as they lounged in the tent with 
the genial warmth of the brush fire playing upon 
them, Seymour broached one of the mysteries of 
the eventful winter. 

“Mind telling me, Moira, what brought you on 
this wild, unseasonable dash into the North?” he 
asked her. 

“It was fear. Sergeant Scarlet—fear for my 
brother.” 

He was surprised. “You mean that you had a 
premonition that something was going to happen to 
him?” 

“Not that exactly,” the girl amplified her first 




LIVING TARGETS 


133 


response. “There was a motion picture I chanced 
to see in Ottawa. It was a dreadful thing called 
The Perils of the North’ or something like that. 
The young man in the picture, away from all of his 
own kind—well, you know what might happen. He 
became a—a squaw man. I got to thinking of Oli¬ 
ver. He had dashed off while I was on a visit in 
Montreal and hadn’t even said good-bye. There 
was nothing really to keep me in the cities and I 
decided my place was with him. That was why I 

came and not in time-” she broke off with a 

sob. 

Sergeant Seymour assured her that her appre¬ 
hensions of her brother becoming a squaw-man 
were absolutely unfounded. A cleaner specimen of 
young Canadian, he declared, had never fared to 
the Arctic foreshore. But he did not tell her, then, 
the real reason behind Oliver O’Malley’s ill-starred 


venture. 





CHAPTER XIII 


HIS MONTREAL PROMISE 

The scene in the rotunda of Montreal’s impres¬ 
sive Windsor Station was as lively as it was 
metropolitan. Trains arrived with their outpour¬ 
ings of passengers, baggage laden, rejoicing at 
journey’s end in the Paris of Canada. Immigrants, 
queerly dressed, stood about in huddled groups, 
waiting to be herded into the cars that would 
carry them to the wheat lands of Saskatchewan or 
the green forests of British Columbia. “Red caps’' 
bustled about with the expensive looking luggage 
of tourists bound back to their own United States 
with their thirsts, for once, thoroughly quenched 
sans any violation of law. 

At one gate to the train shed, an explosive 
Frenchman bade a tearful farewell to a brother 
ticketed for Winnipeg. At another, behind a brass 
guard rail, a tall, upstanding citizen waited with 
impatience the coming of the Ottawa express. His 

fur coat was unbuttoned and an open-faced suit 
134 


HIS MONTREAL PROMISE 


135 


of evening clothes showed beneath. In fact, even 
his oldest friends in the far North might have 
passed him by without recognizing Staff Sergeant 
Russell Seymour, on special detail. 

The hunt for Harry Karmack, embezzler of the 
funds of the Arctic Trading Company, Ltd., of 
course, had not been given up. This was Sey¬ 
mour’s “special”—and would be until the fugitive 
was apprehended, as is the way of the Royal 
Mounted. Even a report brought to Fort McMur- 
ray by a wandering Chipewyan that the factor’s 
body had been found frozen at the foot of Ptar¬ 
migan Bluffs had not halted the search an hour. 
The Indian’s story was too “pat”; the last lost-in- 
blizzard note signed “Karmack” too obvious a 
plant. 

A blizzard there had been, to be sure, a stem- 
winder. Just in time to escape the white scourge 
howling South, Seymour had mushed into Wolf 
Creek Station with his precious invalid. But he 
could not believe that the Armistice factor had per¬ 
mitted himself to be caught in the storm. Too long 
had Karmack been in the North to meet any such 
tenderfoot fate. An old trick, that of reporting 




136 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


one’s self dead by freezing. The thief might have 
saved himself the expense of hiring the Indian to 
bring in the “death notice,” for all it was believed. 

This blizzard had held Seymour at Wolf for 
three endless weeks. There had been just one rec¬ 
ompense. At the end of that period the mission 
surgeon had pronounced Moira sufficiently recov¬ 
ered to continue her trip by dog team. The weather 
had favored them and eventually they had found 
themselves in Athabaska, end-of-steel! The trains 
of the Canadian National and the Grand Trunk 
Pacific had carried them to Ottawa, the girl to a 
welcome in the home of friends, the sergeant to re¬ 
port at headquarters. 

After a conference with the commissioner, Sey¬ 
mour had stepped out of uniform and into plain 
clothes. The still-hunt then begun had continued 
for three months, leading first to Quebec whence 
Karmack had originally hailed. There the sergeant 
had obtained information which confirmed his dis¬ 
belief of the lost-in-blizzard note. Karmack had 
paid a stealthy visit to his old home and departed. 
Rumor had it that he had gone to the States. There¬ 
fore, Seymour did not cross the border to look for 




HIS MONTREAL PROMISE 


137 


him. Knowing the man and his inclinations, the 
sergeant’s hunch was Montreal. From a rented 
room on City Councillor Street, midway between 
the French and Up-town quarters of the city, he had 
played his hunch industriously, but so far without 
result. He had kept away from the mounted police 
headquarters on Sherbrooke West and not once had 
he been taken for what he was, even by fellow 
members of the Force. 

He was growing tired of the city’s confinement, 
but not discouraged. One day he would meet his 
man, know him no matter what his disguise. 

This was to be a night off, the first he had taken 
since getting back to civilization. It was to be a 
gala, reunion night; and it was beginning, for the 
Ottawa express had just ground to a stop in the 
shed outside the high iron grill. 

His pulse beat quicker as he scanned the in-com¬ 
ers—first the smoking-car compliment, then the 
day-coach passengers and, at last the Pullman elect. 
Then he saw her, coming with the poise of a queen, 
a small black bag in her hand. Neatly he hurdled 
the brass barrier and at the very gate he took her 
into his arms and kissed her. 




138 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“Moira, Moira! You’re a glad sight; for tired 
eyes,” he murmured. 

“But not here, Sergeant Scarlet; not here with 
the world looking on,” she whispered in pretended 
protest. 

He did not care how much of the world saw, 
for between them an understanding for life had 
been reached on the trail. 

A taxi, its wheels wearing chains with which to 
grip the snowy streets, hustled them to the Mount 
Royal Hotel, where he had reserved a room for 
her. In less time than most men would have 
believed possible, she had rejoined him in the 
lobby, a vision fit to snow-blind the gods, gowned 
in shimmering silver with a black fringe setting 
it off. 

Evenings with Moira were too precious to leave 
anything to chance and Seymour’s program had 
been carefully prearranged. Again they took a 
taxi and the taxi took them out St. Catherine Street 
to a brilliant electric fairyland—the Venetian 
Gardens. What mattered it that snow never lies 
in the streets of Venice? Well might they have 




HIS MONTREAL PROMISE 


139 


been in sunny Italy once they had climbed a flight 
of stairs to pleasure’s rendezvous above. 

As they entered the huge dancing room, the lights 
went low and the orchestra that doesn’t “jazz” be¬ 
gan the soft measures of a waltz. They did not 
wait to find their table, but swung away with the 
music—for their first dance together. 

And when they were seated, she asked across 
the narrow board: “Do they teach dancing, as well 
as riding and straight-shooting, at the Regina depot. 
Sergeant Scarlet?” 

“You’re forgetting, you big beau’ful Irisher, 
that I’ve been to France since I left the Mounted’s 
riding academy.” 

After they had danced again: “It’s hard to wait, 
Russell. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth while. 
Will you ever get your man?” 

On the frozen trail, after he had spoken the three 
magic words and she had returned them to him with 
equal fervor, they had agreed that marriage was 
not to be thought of until Harry Karmack had been 
brought to book. 

It was a long moment before he answered. 

“I’ve got to get him, Moira. There’d not be 




140 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


complete happiness for us with that business un¬ 
finished. You wouldn’t want to change a fine old 
County Mayo name like O’Malley for that of a 
quitter would you, now? But know this, girl o’ 
mine-” 

He did not finish, his interest claimed by a large 
red-headed man, a bit the worse for liquor. This 
chap’s attention had been attracted by a pair of 
police constables, resplendent in their brilliant uni¬ 
forms, handsome young fellows attached to the 
Montreal detachment, which has a reputation for 
“swank.” 

“Take those young Mounties a bottle of wine and 
mark it down on my check,” the rubric one was say¬ 
ing to the waiter. 

The woman with him, a pretty French girl, 
reached across the table in an effort to quiet him. 

“You leave me alone, Florette,” he resented. “I 
got most all the money in the world and those brave 
lads work for next to nothing a year.” 

“Next to nothing a year.” Seymour repeated the 
expression under his breath. Where had he heard 
that expression before as applied to the same Force 
which yonder cubs decorated? In a flash he was 





HIS MONTREAL PROMISE 


141 


transported back to the trade-room of a sub-Arctic 
factor. 

4 ‘But know this, girl of mine,” Seymour re¬ 
peated. “Get him I will.” 




CHAPTER XIV 


A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 

Sergeant Russell Seymour of the Royal Ca¬ 
nadian again was mounted—actually astride a 
horse with spur at heel and a fine feel of leather 
between his knees. The best part of the continent 
separated him from the Montreal fairyland and 
the regal beauty in whom his ambition and hope 
lay centered. 

An exigency of the service—the policing of the 
mushroom gold camp which he was approaching— 
had been responsible for the sudden shift of ac¬ 
tion’s scene. Not that the hunt for the Armistice 
embezzler had been forgot or abandoned, but with 
the idea that a cold trail might warm if left alone 
for a while, its crossing effected when least ex¬ 
pected. 

The problem at Gold, British Columbia, was so 
large a one that the authorities had overlooked no 
advantage. The fact that Seymour had never seen 

service in the province presented the attractive pos- 
142 


A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 143 


sibility of his making a preliminary survey in plain 
clothes, severely plain, in truth—as plain as stained 
khaki, scuffed leather and battered felt could 
materialize. 

The fact that the region was that selected by 
Moira’s father for his missionary activities and 
that she proposed soon to join the parent did not 
make the summer prospect less attractive for the 
big policeman. The lovely creature riding beside 
him, however, was not the Irish girl but another 
he had overtaken entirely by chance. 

“Of course,” he was saying to her, “it wouldn’t 
be a worth-while gold rush if there wasn’t plenty 
of crowds and excitement. Do you think I’m in 
time?” 

“Oh, there’s still a chance for you to locate a pay 
claim—if luck’s riding with you,” she said cheer¬ 
fully. “Scarcely a day passes without someone re¬ 
porting a new ‘discovery.’ But you’re just three 
days too late for our first real excitement. One of 
the B. C. X. stages was held up and robbed last 
Monday.” 

Almost did the sergeant give himself away at this 




144 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


crime report. In more ways than his fair inform¬ 
ant could possibly imagine, he felt too late. 

At a recent conference in Hazelton, a railroad 
town on the Grand Trunk Pacific, Assistant Com¬ 
missioner Baxter, in command of the division in 
which the new diggings lay, had decided that the 
sergeant should remain incognito until he had had 
opportunity to study the field of his new important 
command. In the role of one of the gold-crazed 
“rushers” the news of the camp would float unre¬ 
strained in his presence. He should be able to get 
an advance line on those who were prone to lawless¬ 
ness, as well as identify the element which might be 
counted on the side of law and order. Moreover, 
he could form an unbiased opinion as to the pros¬ 
pective permanency of the camp and the number of 
constables needed to police it satisfactorily. 

He had shipped a “war bag” containing his uni¬ 
forms and personal effects by the stage line of this 
same British Columbia Express which the girl had 
just mentioned. The charges were prepaid and the 
baggage was to be held until called for. Then he 
had set out on a rangy police horse, Kaw, over the 
Old Sun Trail, a time-blazed path into the Yukon 




A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 145 


country, from which a cross-cut had let him into 
Argonaut Valley. 

“Did the robbers get—make their escape?” he 
asked, remembering in time to cut the professional 
tone from his question. 

“Clean as a whistle. They killed the driver at 
the reins so there isn’t a clew even to what they 
looked like or how many there were.” 

“But the passengers?” he ventured to ask. 

The girl shrugged shapely shoulders. The face 
that looked from beneath the shielding brim was 
framed in ash-blond wavelets. The figure that 
had looked so boyish from a distance, while he was 
overtaking her, was now rounded into exquisite 
feminine lines. Her corduroy riding trousers were 
frankly worn without hint of a skirt, but her gray 
flannel shirt was V’d at the neck to show a marble 
throat such as no boy could have endured. And 
in the belt that pouched a man-weight automatic was. 
the final touch—a small bouquet of waxen snow- 
flowers. 

In answer to his question she told him that there 
were no passengers in the coach. “It was the in- 




146 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


bound baggage wagon they held up, you see— 
doubtless by mistake.” 

As he pondered the unusual circumstance of road 
agents mistaking a baggage wagon for a passenger¬ 
carrying coach, they were startled by gun fire. 
Seymour’s expert ears placed it a short distance 
ahead and to the right of them—a bit nearer town. 
He recognized the snarl of a rifle and, a moment 
later, the bark of a pistol. Unquestionably, the re¬ 
ports had come from different weapons. 

A half-stifled scream drew his attention to the 
girl at his side. The effect on her was surprising. 
She could not have showed greater alarm if one of 
the bullets had perforated her hat. Every trace of 
color had fled her cheeks. 

“Oh, that it’s just some hunter and not-” 

If she finished her prayerful expression, Sey¬ 
mour did not hear it, for she had dug heels into 
her horse and the animal was skimming the trail. 

Kaw took after the cayuse full tilt; his rider, 
the while, listening for other shots, but heard none. 
Ahead, he saw the girl round a sharp turn into what 
seemed to be a through road into town. If she was 





A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 147 


seeking the source of the shots they had heard, he 
knew she need not go far. 

When his black negotiated the turn and the road 
was spread out before him, he saw that she had ar¬ 
rived. Her horse stood nosing another and she was 
kneeling in the trail beside an indistinct figure. In 
a moment he had dismounted and stood beside her. 

“Too late,” she cried, looking up at him with a 
terrified expression. “If only I hadn’t slowed to 
chat with you—I feared they would get him and 
was riding to warn him. I thought there was plenty 
of time to get to town before he started.” 

She did not blame him for the delay; seemed 
only to accuse herself. For the sergeant, there was 
enough of surprise in the figure of the slain man 
to occupy his mind and eyes. 

“Who—who is he?” he asked after staring a 
moment. 

“He’s our new mounted police officer, Sergeant 
Russell Seymour,” she said, her voice hushed. 
“Don’t you know the uniform when you see it?” 

Seymour did recognize that particular uniform 
far better than she possibly could have imagined, 
but he refrained from admitting it. 




148 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


Reaching down, the sergeant raised the girl to 
her feet; but he did not set her right on the mistake 
in identity. The case looked double-barrelled to 
him inasmuch as it gave him an inside line on the 
holdup of the express company’s stage and a lead 
toward at least one element of the heterogeneous 
camp which was opposed to the coming of the Do¬ 
minion’s law-bringers. He meant to handle both 
angles with the utmost effect and the fact that they 
existed must for a time remain his secret. 

“Looks like murder,” he said, his eyes leaving 
the stolen uniform and focusing on the wound, the 
clean hole of a steel bullet in the right temple. 

“It is murder—from ambush,” the girl de¬ 
clared, her voice sharp with conviction. 

But Seymour was not so sure. Without disturb¬ 
ing a convulsive death grip, he examined the re¬ 
volver held in an outflung hand. It had been dis¬ 
charged once. 

“ ’Twasn’t a complete ambush, anyway,” he 
reasoned. “He had some hint of what was com¬ 
ing. Couldn’t have drawn his gun after that bullet 
hit him. The way my ears read the reports, he 
fired just after the rifle spoke—probably a spas- 




A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 149 


modic pull on the trigger with no aim or hit. You 
know, Mounties are not supposed to fire first. The 
rule has killed a number of them.” 

“He was so brave—absolutely fearless,” she 
murmured. 

Seymour might have gone further in reconstruct¬ 
ing the crime, but he checked observation on the 
subject lest she suspect his training. 

“You knew him well. Miss-Miss-” he 

asked, partially to divert her mind from his profes¬ 
sional deductions. 

“I’m Ruth Duperow,” she told him. “My uncle 
is a missionary here.” 

At once he remembered Moira’s description of 
the colorful cousin who was keeping her father 
company. The contrast in type was remarkable. 

“Yes,” she went on, “I knew the sergeant quite 
well and admired—both my uncle and I admired 
his courage and uprightness.” 

“You said his name was-•” 

The girl’s frankness did not desert her. “His 
real name was Russell Seymour but we knew him 
first as Bart Caswell. You see, he has been here 
for a month, studying the camp without anyone sus- 







150 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


pecting that he was not the mining expert he pre¬ 
tended he was. Not until the stage robbery did he 
disclose who he was and put on his uniform.” 

Seymour turned to hide a smile; the plan which 
the girl outlined as Bart Caswell’s sounded so ex¬ 
actly like his own. When he turned back to her, 
his hand was stroking meditatively a clean shaven 
chin. 

“Is there a coroner in Gold?” he asked. 

“When a man was killed in a shaft cave-in on 
Sweet Marie Creek last week, a deputy acted be¬ 
fore uncle read the service,” was the girl’s infor¬ 
mation, delivered with a frown. The reason for the 
contraction of brow appeared when she added 
“That deputy sheriff and coroner is a chump named 
Sam Hardley, and he didn’t like Bart—I mean Mr. 
Seymour.” 

The real Seymour made mental note of this 
fragment without seeming to be impressed or more 
than casually interested. 

“At that, Hardley will have to be notified, I sup¬ 
pose,” Miss Duperow went on. “It’s the law, isn’t 
it?” 

The sergeant nodded. “Something of the sort. 




A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 151 


But first I’m going to have a little look into the 
brush to see—what I can see. Mind waiting for a 
few minutes?” 

“Don’t risk it,” cried the girl, taking a step 
toward him and laying an impulsive hand upon his 
sleeve. “Whoever murdered Bart may be lurk¬ 
ing in the brush and wouldn’t hesitate to take a shot 

at you. You don’t know how desperate the-” 

She broke off in sudden caution and finished incon¬ 
sequentially: “One killing is enough for to-day.” 

“A killing too many,” he assured her, but swung 
into the saddle. “I’ll take no unnecessary chances, 
and I’ll not be gone long.” 

With the girl’s disapproving look following him, 
he rode into the underbrush to the left of the trail. 
From that direction, he figured, had come the bul¬ 
let. He had small hope of any encounter. With 
the cowardly attack neatly turned, he could con¬ 
ceive no reason why the perpetrator should hide 
a round the scene of the crime. There was a chance, 
however, that he might pick up the trail of depar¬ 
ture and learn its trend before the camp’s amateur 
sleuths got busy and blotted out all signs. 

On superficial survey, it seemed to the sergeant 





152 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


that the bogus officer had been riding out from town 
on some mission not entirely unsuspected by those 
against whom he meant to act. Near the trail 
forks, someone had lain in wait and killed him. 

One shot had sufficed. Caswell’s effort to answer 
undoubtedly had been futile. Then the slayer had 
slunk away in the brush. It seemed unlikely that 
he would go into town; entirely reasonable that 
he would return whence he had come. Seymour 
imagined that that would be the place for which 
the pretended Mountie was bound, were that ever 
determined. That the escape had been through the 
brush seemed likely, since nobody had passed them 
on the trail after the shooting. 

Twenty yards into the brush, he set Kaw par¬ 
allel with the trail that followed the River Cheena. 
The undergrowth was not too thick for riding if one 
watched for fallen trees and devil-club thickets. 
The ground, soft from recent spring rains, took 
tracks like putty. An Indian in moccasins might 
have passed without leaving a trail, but any booted 
white must have shed footprints like Crusoe’s man 
Friday. 

Soon, the officer picked up horse tracks so fresh 




A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 153 


as to be still sucking moisture from the muskeg. 
These angled toward the trail over which he had fol¬ 
lowed Miss Duperow. He traced them back to a 
clump of poplars. There he found evidence that a 
horse had been tied, evidently having been rid¬ 
den from the main trail. 

Footprints coming and going testified to a round 
trip in that direction. He examined these with care. 
In measuring these with a lead pencil, for lack of 
a tape, he noted the impress of a peculiar plate on 
the side of the right sole. Either the wearer was 
slightly lame or possessed a gait that made it ad¬ 
visable to reinforce the outer edge of his boot. 

The foot trail ended in a patch of salmonberry 
bushes, already in thick leaf and furnishing an 
ideal curtain. Groping about where the earth was 
beaten down, he soon discovered a copper cartridge 
case. His eyes sized this as having been thrown 
from a 30-30 Winchester, the same sort as that his 
saddle carried, one likely to be common in that 
region. Undoubtedly the dented case had held the 
steel nosed bullet that had ended the career of the 
crook who had dared impersonate a Mountie. 

When Seymour stood erect, he saw he was head 




154 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


and shoulders above the bramble screen, in plain 
view and easy range of the tragedy scene. Doubt¬ 
less in the very spot which he occupied, the mur¬ 
derer had stood erect to fling a taunt or shout a 
false warning at the approaching horseman; then 
he had shot before the other could act. 

The circumstances of the crime reproduced to his 
own satisfaction, Seymour squandered a moment 
in studying his partner of the trail, his scrutiny un¬ 
suspected by the fair object thereof. 

Ruth Duperow stood uncovered, her hat hanging 
from the horn of her saddle. The sun played upon 
the unmeshed waves of her silver-gold hair, 
bringing out unnumbered glints. She was taller 
than he had thought, almost as tall as her cousin, 
Moira. Her face was buried in hands that rested 
on the saddle seat, her poise slumped and heavy 
with grief. 

“Poor youngling,” mused the sergeant in deep 
sympathy. “She’s taking it hard. These gentlemen 
crooks sure raise Ned with the ladies. Knowing 
that her uncle was a missionary, this Bart would 
not be at loss what trumps to lead. Reckon his 
blossoming out in my scarlet just topped the bill. 




A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 155 


Must have cut quite a figure in life, this Bart Cas¬ 
well—or whatever his real name was. Handsome 
dog, too. No resemblance to me.” He turned 
away with the hope that someone else would have 
the job of telling her the murdered man himself 
was a criminal. 

Regaining his horse, Seymour mounted, minded 
to follow the hoof-print trail for a way. This was 
child’s play; Kaw attended to it, leaving the ser¬ 
geant free to peer ahead. Meantime, his mind 
was busy revolving the surprising facts with which 
chance had equipped him. 

He saw no need for mental doubt over the stage 
robbery. The uniform in which Bart was clad 
unquestionably was the dressier of the two he had 
enclosed in the bag and shipped to Gold. The “E” 
Division had a new tailor, a mistake had been made 
in stitching on the insignia and trace of the change 
remained on the sleeve. Even had there been other 
members of the Force in the district, he would have 
sworn to that uniform. He had not a doubt that 
the handsome deceiver of Cousin Ruth either had 
held up the stage single handed or had partici¬ 
pated in the crime. 




156 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


He could not agree with Ruth Duperow that the 
road agent, or agents, had mistaken the express 
vehicle for one of the passenger coaches in use on 
this difficult line. That did not stand the test of 
reason, any more than did a supposition that the 
robbery had been for the sake of obtaining the uni¬ 
form of a mounted police officer. No one possibly 
could have known that such a rig was in transit. 
At best, the authority which any spurious wearer 
might command, must be of brief duration for the 
owner could be counted on to follow his clothes. 
The risk was not worth the fleeting advantage. 

The sergeant did not have to argue himself into a 
conviction that he must seek elsewhere for the pur¬ 
pose of the holdup. Some other shipment—just 
what, he meant to find out—that was coveted and 
worth taking chances to secure must have been ex¬ 
pected. He believed that, in examining his loot, 
the robber-murderer had come upon the uniform 
and had decided to use it in some other bold stroke 
without the law. 

The sergeant could not withhold admiration for 
the daring which the man who called himself Cas¬ 
well had shown in his last hours of life. To put 




A DOUBLE-BARRELLED CASE 157 


on the trusted and feared uniform, to declare him¬ 
self the representative of Dominion authority and 
to undertake the solution of his own crime was a 
coup as clever and novel a$ it was impudent. Had 
the culprit stopped there, he might have made a 
clean get-away with whatever else of loot the stage 
carried. Seymour concluded that the prize which 
had made him resort to murder must be of great 
value. He did not overlook the possibility that Bart 
might have been slain by a pal dissatisfied with the 
division of the spoils. But, in view of hints 
dropped by Ruth, he was inclined to believe that 
this morning’s slaying had no connection with the 
B. C. X. crime. The girl, after all, was his best 
source of information. 

Just as he was about to turn back and question 
her further, the horse tracks he was following broke 
from the bush into the switchback trail and were 
lost. At once he swung Kaw around for the return 
canter. Shortly he overtook his own pack cayuse 
faithfully plodding in pursuit, and took the animal 
under halter, that it might not become confused at 
the crossroads. 

At the turn, he saw that a group of men had 




158 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


gathered about the lifeless figure of Bart. A freight 
wagon drawn by three yoke of oxen had been 
stopped near by and reins dropped on four or five 
saddle horses. But he looked in vain for his com¬ 
panion of chance. Ruth Duperow and her mount 
were gone. 




CHAPTER XV 


UNDER SUSPICION 

None of the usual greetings of the Northern 
trail were offered Seymour as he rode up to the 
group. Instead, he found himself the target for a 
battery of frowning glances. The men presented 
a stolid front of frigid scrutiny. The probability 
flashed upon him that, as the first stranger to reach 
the scene, he was under suspicion in connection 
with the crime. 

The sergeant stopped his horse and was about 
to dismount when there was a movement among 
the men. A short, stout man, from whose ample 
belt dangled a small cannon of a revolver, waddled 
forth to stand before him. 

“What’s happened?” asked Seymour quickly 
deciding to say nothing of his previous visit. 

“That’s what we’re goin’ to find out,” said the 
fat man in that shrill small voice with which 
humans of undue girth often are afflicted. “Who’re 
you?” 


159 


160 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


This question was as natural as Seymour’s own, 
but the manner in which it was asked put him on 
edge. And since Bart had appropriated his name 
along with his uniform, he could not answer truth¬ 
fully without laying himself open to a further ex¬ 
planation than he proposed to make at that mo¬ 
ment. 

“As for that, who’re you?” he snapped back. 

“I’m Deputy Coroner Samuel Hardley.” The 
speech was pompous; so was his turning back of a 
coat lapel to exhibit a nickle-plated badge of office. 
“I’m also deputy sheriff and represent the law of 
British Columbia in Gold.” 

Seymour had suspected his interrogator’s iden¬ 
tity; was ready with his “Glad to meet you, chief.” 

“And I’ve got authority to make you answer my 
questions,” piped the deputy. “Where you from 
and what’s your business?” 

“From the Caribou country by way of the Old 
Sun trail,” Seymour anwered truthfully enough. 
“There’s my outfit.” He jerked his thumb over 
his shoulder toward the pack horse which stood 
with prospector’s equipment in broadside view. 
“That tells you what my business is.” 




UNDER SUSPICION 


161 


“Be ready to prove it. What you know about 
this murder?” 

The sergeant wished he knew just how the Dupe- 
row girl stood in this matter. Probably, for rea¬ 
sons of her own, she had gone on before any of 
the town party had arrived—possibly because 
she had heard them coming. If any of them had 
seen her, it seemed evident that she had not men¬ 
tioned his participation in the discovery, or that 
he was beating the bush on the case. Yet, after all 
her seeming frankness and her keen personal in¬ 
terest in the victim, why had she “slid out.” Since 
he could not answer that mental query, he decided 
on reticence in answering the deputy’s spoken 
one. 

“I don’t know anything about it,” he replied 
with no appreciable delay, although without ac¬ 
centing the “know,” as he should have done in 
strict truth. 

“Queer you should come ambling along with 
Seymour of the Royal Mounted lying in the road 
not yet cold,” grumbled Hardley. “Yes sir-ee; it 
looks right queer to me. I think I’d better take 
you in on suspicion.” 




162 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


Seymour bore down on him with a most direct 
glance, the blue of his eyes almost black in their 
intensity—black as the ears of Kaw between which 
he was forced to look for exact focus. “And I 
think you’d better do nothing of the sort—on sus¬ 
picion. I’m a Canadian citizen; I have and know 
my rights.” 

The sergeant, of course, was running a sheer 
bluff. The provincial officer might have placed 
him under arrest; but to suffer detention was not 
in Seymour’s program, for relief from it prob¬ 
ably would require the disclosing of his identity 
at a time when he felt he could work more to ad¬ 
vantage under cover. In the brief moment of 
their roadside controversy, he had “sized” his man 
and believed him one who would yield to a 
stronger will without other than ocular demon¬ 
stration. 

But he did not have time to prove his estimate 
of Hardley. Aid, or interference—whichever 
way one looked at it—came from an unexpected 
quarter. 

“The stranger’s right, Sam,” spoke a handsome, 
blond-haired chap whose look of intelligence 






UNDER SUSPICION 


163 


recommended him to Seymour as above average. 
“You haven’t any call to arrest him just because 
he happened along a public trail at an unlucky 
moment. Far as that goes, you might better ar¬ 
rest yourself.” 

“What you driving at, Phil Brewster?” de¬ 
manded Hardley, breaking away from the stran¬ 
ger’s gaze and turning on his fellow townsman. 
“Are you hinting that I had any hand in sending 
‘West’ one of his majesty’s officers?” 

“You was jealous of him,” put in an old man 
with a twisted face; the driver of the oxen, if one 
could judge from the goad upon which he leaned. 

“And sore as a pup when you found he had been 
here a month without your suspicioning,” contrib¬ 
uted another townsman. 

Evidently Hardley was not surrounded by any 
picked posse and was none too much respected as 
the peace officer of the community. 

Relieved to be out of the calcium, at least for 
the moment, Seymour swung from his horse and 
crossed the road to look at the body of Bart, the 
natural move had he really been stranger to the 
tragedy. 




164 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


The deputy chose to ignore the jibes of his 
neighbors. But he renewed his demands upon 
Brewster for an interpretation of his insinuations, 
reminding him he was no “bohunk freighter” to be 
talked to as an ox. 

“Oh, I don’t think for a minute that you kicked 
off the staff sergeant,” the handsome chap began 
to explain. To the real Seymour, listening, came 
a creepy feeling at the use of his name in such a 
connection. “I was just using you as an example 
to show your hasty methods with this stranger,” 
Brewster went on. “You were sitting in your sad¬ 
dle and staring down at the remains when I rode up 
from the creeks. But I didn’t suspect you of fir¬ 
ing the shot or even of knowing anything about 
it.” 

Hardley looked somewhat mollified. 

“But Sam was jealous,” persisted the ox-driver. 

“Stop your noise, Cato!” shrilled the deputy. 
“There was a perfectly good reason for my being 
first on the scene. I saw the sergeant ride past 
my shack all uniformed-up and looking as if he 
meant business!” 

“More’n you’d know how to look,” goaded Cato, 




UNDER SUSPICION 


165 


playfully prodding the deputy with one of his in¬ 
ordinately long arms. 

“Want me to bash you up?” Hardley demanded, 
irritated; then went on with his explanation. “For 
reasons best known to himself and beyond my ken, 
now never to be disclosed to mortal understanding, 
Seymour hadn’t been taking me into his confi¬ 
dence either before or after uncovering himself. 
It wasn’t good policemanship on his part, I’ll say, 
but I’m big enough of a man-” 

Cato’s crackling laughter interrupted. “Big 
enough, I’ll say—but of a man?” he burst out. 

“Anyway, I figgered I knew the breed of wolves 
up the creek better than he did and that he might 
need help. You know Sam Hardley’s gun is al¬ 
ways ready. So I saddled up old Loafer there and 
took out after him, prepared to lend a hand to 
law and order as was my sworn duty.” 

There was further exchange among the Goldites 
—theories regarding the new crime, gratuitous ad¬ 
vice for the fat deputy, speculation regarding its 
effect on the outside reputation of the camp. Glad 
that interest had shifted from himself, Seymour 
listened subconsciously. 





166 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


Suddenly his attention was claimed by a decora¬ 
tion which had not been on the uniform when he 
had at first scrutinized it. Into the breast opening 
of the serge coat was tucked a spray of snow 
flowers. 

“Her last tribute,” his thoughts whispered. 
“And an ill-considered one if she has any reason 
for not wanting her little world to know that she 
first discovered the crime.” 

It was unlikely that the imposter had been any¬ 
where that morning where he could pluck flowers 
which Seymour knew to grow only in the deeper 
gulches where the packed snow of winter resisted 
the thaws of spring to the last. The wearing of 
the nosegay was so out of keeping with the char¬ 
acter that Bart had assumed as to attract attention. 
The sergeant wondered that the men arguing be¬ 
hind him had not already noticed and questioned 
its presence. 

Kneeling ostensibly to tie a bootlace, he recti¬ 
fied the girl’s mistake by plucking forth the flow¬ 
ers and tucking them into an inside pocket of his 
coat. The others, although approaching, evidently 
had not noticed this deft appropriation. Ruth 




UNDER SUSPICION 


167 


Duperow’s connection with the tragedy was her 
secret unless later she wished to take the camp into 
her confidence. 

“It’s a cinch that these two killings are linked,” 
Hardley was shrilling to all ears within range. 
“When I get the man that killed the sergeant, Fll 
have the man that shot the B. C. X. driver; and, 
vice versa, if I get the man that killed the stage 
driver. I’ll have the one that shot the sergeant.” 

“Which one do you calculate to get first, Sam?” 
asked Brewster, straight-faced as an undertaker. 

The pudgy deputy stared at him in momentary 
suspicion, then took the bait. “Cato the Ox might 
he excused a fool question like that, Phil, but I’d 
have thought you’d be wise to vice versa. Don’t 
you see, man, that these murderers are one and the 
same?” 

“Then I’d advise you to throw down on that one 
and the same quick as the Almighty will let you,” 
said Brewster. “The Mounties will be riled to the 
core over the killing of one of their own; they’ll 
swarm in here like flies as soon as the news gets 
out.” 

The mining camp’s deputy coroner was obvi- 




168 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


ously disturbed by this logical counsel. Although 
the morning was not warm, he whipped out a saf¬ 
fron-colored handkerchief and mopped his brow. 
Evidently that ministration did not satisfy for he 
took off his hat and polished his pate, which was 
disclosed to be as bald as an eagle’s. 

66 ’Spite your astonishing ignorance in some 
things, Phil, you sometimes show a glimmer of 
sense,” he said at last. “I was headed right in 
the first place. I’ve got to make some arrests and 
have the victims ready for the Mounties when they 
come swarming.” 

His eyes, while delivering himself of this pro¬ 
nouncement, had fixed on the sergeant. 

“Victims—you said it,” offered Seymour in cal¬ 
culating defense. “Some arrests. I suppose 
you’ll make a bunch of them. Well, start in with 
me and bring in lots of company. You might as 
well make the mounted police plumb disgusted 
with you while you’re about it.” For a moment 
he watched Hardley squirm under this obvious 
scorn, then added: “Isn’t a coroner’s inquest the 
first of orderly procedure in a case of this sort? If 
you get a verdict from a jury, you’ll have some- 




UNDER SUSPICION 


169 


thing to stand on when—when the Mounties come.” 

Hardiey embraced the offering found in Sey¬ 
mour’s sudden change from scorn to a practical 
suggestion. “I’ll have an inquest with all due 
respect to the law, just as soon as we can get the 
late staff-sergeant into town,” he shrilled. “See 
that you stick around, stranger. There’s no tel¬ 
ling at who the coroner’s jury will point the finger 
of guilt.” 

Seymour nodded agreement. From official ex¬ 
perience, he knew that there was no telling. 




CHAPTER XVI 


THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 

In the slipshod procedure of Deputy Sam 
Hardley the professional policeman had an illus¬ 
tration of why the force of which he was a mem¬ 
ber was needed to supplement some county peace 
officers of the Dominion. Although the fat official 
undoubtedly believed a commissioned officer of the 
mounted police had been murdered in cold blood 
while in the pursuit of duty, his handling of the 
case proved most perfunctory. There was no close 
study of the immediate surroundings; not even a 
beating of the bush to determine the point from 
which the fatal shot was fired. 

The fact that the victim’s revolver had been fired 
once was noted, not by Hardley, but by the citi¬ 
zen addressed as Phil Brewster who, it developed, 
operated a freight packing business between Gold 
and the creeks. Doubtless, the tragedy of the ex¬ 
press driver had been handled with similar care- 
170 


THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 


171 


lessness, and this unlucky Bart Caswell given every 
opportunity to launch his daring impersonation. 

About all that Hardley did was go through the 
pockets of the uniform while one of the crowd 
made a list of contents as they were produced and 
placed in a large handkerchief. There was a wal¬ 
let meagerly supplied with small bills, a pocket 
knife, a ring of keys and a briar pipe—not any 
of which were familiar to Seymour. But there 
was in addition a certified copy of his own com¬ 
mission as staff-sergeant of the R. C. M. P., which 
had been in the war bag, and a sheaf of official 
blanks. These proceeds of the search were 
knotted within the handkerchief and deposited in 
Hardley’s pocket, presumably to be handed over 
to the Mounted. 

Soon, the waiting freight wagon was impressed 
into service as a rude catafalque. With the horse¬ 
men in procession formed behind, the cortege 
headed for the near-by camp. Its pace, at least, 
was funereal, thanks to oxen deliberation. 

Once into the main street, Seymour found a 
semblance of permanency in the town. The estab¬ 
lishments of two rival trading companies were 




172 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


built of logs and surprisingly fronted by show 
windows. The one hotel, in distinction from sev¬ 
eral bunk houses, had two stories, with a false 
front atop the second. Seymour noted also a res¬ 
taurant, a chop house, a pool hall, several “soft” 
drink emporiums—all of rough board construc¬ 
tion. 

A shack of slabs, roofed with cedar shakes, 
crouched beside the hotel and supported the sign: 

OFFICE OF SHERIFF 
GOLD BRANCH 
OFFICE OF CORONER 

Evidently it was from the door of this that 
Deputy Coroner Hardley had seen the imposter set 
out on his fatal ride. 

Near this shack stood the temporary post office 
which divided a store room with the records of the 
mining recorder. The First Bank of Gold occu¬ 
pied a tent with a wooden floor. For the reassur¬ 
ance of customers and for the information of all, 
this tent wore a banner on which was painted: 
“Our palatial permanent home is under construc¬ 
tion across the street.” Glancing in that direction. 




THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 


173 


the stranger saw a structure of corrugated iron, 
awaiting a roof. 

Gold, at this season of the year, was a night 
town, so the streets had been practically deserted 
as the small procession entered. Even though 
most of the population was at work up the creeks, 
there was something of an outpouring into King 
Street as the news of the shooting spread. 

Some fifty men and a scattering of women gath¬ 
ered to mill about the freight wagon soon after 
the oxen were halted before Hardley’s shack. 
From the vantage of his saddle seat, Seymour 
studied their faces as they received the news, but 
caught no trace of any emotion that interested 
him. All seemed genuinely shocked; none, too 
deeply moved. He heard many express regret 
over such a drastic blow at the law. If any re¬ 
joiced, they did so secretly. 

Deputy Hardley consulted with important citi¬ 
zens, identified for Seymour by the one nearest 
his stirrup as the bank manager, the camp doc¬ 
tor, and the principal realtor. Presently the dep¬ 
uty shrilled an announcement that in his capacity 
of coroner he would swear a jury and hold an in- 




174 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


quest at one o’clock in the uncompleted bank build¬ 
ing. 

The freight wagon, its somber burden covered 
with tarpaulin, was drawn to a position at the 
rear of the unfinished structure, which was open 
where workmen were laying a heavy flooring for a 
vault. The townsmen, their curiosity satisfied, 
began to disperse about their mundane affairs. 

In turning Kaw to be about his own, Seymour 
came face to face with Ruth Duperow, who evi¬ 
dently had just reached town and at speed, for her 
mount was puffing. The color of excitement was 
high in the girl’s cheeks. But no hint that she ever 
had seen him before came from the young woman 
who, within the hour, had been so solicitous of his 
welfare as to try to keep him from entering the 
brush in search of the murderer. Her eyes did 
not avoid his; they simply did not know him. 

Having administered this puzzling cut direct, she 
focused on the gallant figure of Brewster who rode 
alongside her, his handsome face alight with un¬ 
doubted admiration. 

“What has happened?” Seymour heard her ask. 




THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 


175 


“Your dashing sergeant-of-staff has been mur¬ 
dered.” Brewster’s reply was fittingly low. 

The girl’s eyes flashed angrily. “Terrible! I 
must say you don’t seem greatly distressed, Mr. 
Brewster, and I’ll thank you not to connect me with 
the poor brave man by saying my sergeant.” 

“You’ve been seeing so much of this Bart per¬ 
son, Ruth, you hadn’t had any time for your old 
friends. Of course, I’m sorry for the way he’s 
been put out of the running, but-” 

“That ‘but’ does you small credit. Who do you 
suppose-” 

“Hardley hasn’t decided yet.” Seymour caught 
the flicker of contempt in the freighter’s eyes. 
“Better come and have dinner with me at the hotel; 
this isn’t our tragedy.” 

Her displeasure seemed increased, and she 
gathered her reins. “I wouldn’t think of it,” she 
said with decision. “I must carry the dreadful 
news to uncle.” 

Whirling her horse, she dashed away up the 
road over which she had so lately come. 

“Some actress, but why?” murmured Seymour. 

There were several why’s that the sergeant found 






176 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


it necessary to consider. Why had she cut him at 
their second meeting? Why had she feigned en¬ 
tire ignorance of what had happened? He could 
only hope that the same answer would serve for 
all—that she had acted so in the hope of being 
more free to work out a solution of the mystery 
as to who had killed Bart. 

It was evident from Brewster’s complaining 
attitude that the imposter had paid Miss Dupe- 
row enough attention to arouse the handsome 
freighter’s jealousy. And Brewster had mis- 
played his hand by allowing his feeling to crop 
out at such a moment when he should have shown 
the murderer’s detection and punishment to be his 
chief interest. He now stood staring up the street 
after her, looking utterly discomfited. 

Dismounting, Seymour led Kaw across the street 
and joined Brewster, who snapped out of his mood 
upon being addressed. The information the ser¬ 
geant sought was pleasantly given. 

The stranger undoubtedly could get a room, 
such as it was, at the Bonanza Hotel. Brewster 
himself lived there. The “eats” weren’t much, 
but he could take pot-luck at the restaurant. If 




THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 


177 


his room wasn’t airy enough, he could get ample 
ventilation by poking his finger through the parti¬ 
tions. He’d find the stables “around back.” 
There was no telegraph office—yet, and no radio. 
Yes, the camp was a little slow in catching up with 
the times. The next mail would go out in the 
morning. 

“Guess Fd better tell that suspicious deputy 
where I’m stopping,” Seymour remarked when 
duly posted. 

Brewster laughed and shrugged his shoulders. 
“Don’t mind Sam Hardley, stranger. By now his 
mind is loping along some other line of suspicion. 
Better come to the inquest, though. With Hardley 
in the coroner’s seat it will be better than vaude¬ 
ville.” 

The sergeant did attend the inquest in the un¬ 
roofed bank building, where the workmen had 
“laid off” for the “event.” That he did not find 
it as amusing as Brewster had promised was not 
entirely due to the queer feeling that came with 
every mention of his name as that of the central 
figure. He writhed at the official flounderings of 
Hardley, who made an exhibition of a jury which. 




178 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


under sensible direction, would have proved com¬ 
petent. 

Seymour had heard strange coroners’ verdicts 
before, but that which this fat deputy sponsored 
was a prize-winning oddity. Hardley read it 
aloud: 

“We, the jury in this murder case duly 
impaneled, do and now hereby report that 
Staff-Sergeant Russell Seymour of the Royal 
Mounted Canadian Police, in the pursuit of 
duty in the proximity of Gold, B. C., did come 
to an untimely death to the regret of this 
afflicted law-abiding community. 

“We, the jury, etc., do find and hereby 
report further that the aforesaid lamented 
Seymour was murdered by a rifle bullet fired 
by the man who held up the B. C. X. stage 
and killed Ben Tabor, driver thereof and sub¬ 
ject of the last preceding inquest of this 
court, both being foul and fatal murders. 

“We, the jury, etc., do find and hereby 
report still further, that Deputy Coroner 
Samuel Hardley, Esq., reached the scene of 
the tragedy with commendable promptitude. 
We direct him to draw such posse as he finds 
necessary from amongst the citizens of Gold 




THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 


179 


and run to earth the perpetrator of these 
dastardly crimes; and, furthermore, we ex¬ 
press our confidence that he will leave no 
stone unturned to justify his reputation as a 
fearless officer with the encomiums of a suc¬ 
cessful capture dead or alive.” 

Hardley’s shrill voice was softened by the huski¬ 
ness of proudful emotion as he finished the read¬ 
ing. From his seat on an empty packing box in 
the front row of spectators, Phil Brewster uttered 
a fervent “A-men!” then, catching the eye of Sey¬ 
mour who stood along the wall, he winked sar¬ 
donically. 

“Needless to say, fellow citizens of Gold,” 
Hardley shrilled on after having cleared his 
throat, “your officer appreciates the confidence of 
which this jury of his peers has so fitly delivered 
itself. He will leave no stone unturned to bring to 
a rope’s end the foul fiend guilty of sending to 
perdition these two men, one a brave officer of the 
law and the other a worthy driver of the B. C. X. 
mules. He would respectfully suggest that before 
you leave this temporary temple of justice, so 
kindly loaned for the occasion by the public- 




180 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


spirited manager of the First Bank of Gold, each 
and every one of you look for the last time on one 
who gave his life that this should be a more decent 
and law-loving mining camp.” 

For this last suggestion, Seymour could forgive 
Hardley’s astonishing lack of modesty, even his 
consigning to “perdition” the two casualties. Al¬ 
though the fat deputy could not have imagined it, 
he had done the sergeant a pronounced favor. 

Seymour lost no time in gaining a position from 
which he could watch the reaction on every face 
that looked upon Bart. His attention was caught 
by a little woman of pleasing countenance, in a 
drab dress and the beflowered hat of an outsider, 
whom he had noticed casually during the hearing. 
Now that the line had thinned to nothing and even 
the deputy had left his guard-of-honor post, the 
little woman came forward haltingly and bent over 
the rude catafalque. Seymour could not see her 
face for the moment as it was shadowed by her hat 
brim, but he heard a stifled sob. For an instant, 
she tottered and seemed so likely to fall that he 
took a quick step toward her. His aid, however, 
proved unnecessary. With a shudder, she recov- 




THE “WIDDY” IN GRAY 


181 


ered herself and hurried away, dabbing at her 
eyes with a bit of cambric. 

As the only individual who had shown the least 
personal emotion, the policeman’s interest fol¬ 
lowed her. So did his steps. Outside, he felt 
fortunate when he fell in with an acquaintance of 
the morning, Cato, the driver of oxen. 

“Who is the little woman in gray?” he asked 
casually. 

“She’s a widdy, but not looking for a second,” 
Cato’s face was more twisted than usual by its sar¬ 
castic grin. 

“And I’m not seeking a first,” Seymour set him 
straight. “I asked because she seemed more af¬ 
fected than the other women by Hardley’s tribute 
line.” 

The old ox driver seemed reassured. “She’s just 
a big-hearted Jane, owner and cook of the Home 
Restaurant down the street yonder. The sergeant 
boarded with her before he bloomed out in the 
royal uniform. I boarded there too, until she 
turned me down. I’m just wondering—was it him 
in the offing that made her cold towards me? 
Course, he wouldn’t look at her, not serious; him 




182 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


being a staff-sergeant in secret. But women nurse 
wild hopes—’specially widdies. Maybe I’d have a 
chance now he’s been plugged into the discard.” 

Seymour glanced at him in amazement; that he, 
with his caricature of a face, could speak of 
women nursing wild hopes. 

Evidently Cato read his thoughts. “You needn’t 
look so doubtful, stranger.” He flared with re¬ 
sentment. “Ox driving brings mighty smart wages 
up here, and I got a claim on Hoodoo Creek that 
may make me one of them mill’onaires when I get 
round to working of it next winter. Women can 
read behind the mask—’specially widdies.” 

Anxious to be off on the trail of his hunch, the 
sergeant was not sorry when they came to the 
Brewster warehouse and Cato left to inquire about 
his next load of freight for the creeks. Russell 
Seymour felt suddenly hungry—for home cook¬ 
ing. 




CHAPTER XVII 


RICHER THAN GOLD 

There was no one visible in the Home Restau¬ 
rant when Seymour entered. While talking to 
Cato, however, he had seen the woman unlock the 
door and disappear within, and now, after he had 
shut the door noisily behind him, he heard some¬ 
one moving behind the partition in the rear. He 
had time to make choice between a seat at one of 
the two small tables or a stool at the oilcloth-cov¬ 
ered counter beside the range. Presently she came 
into the room. He was seated at the counter. 

That she had been crying was evident; also that 
she had made an effort to remove the traces. In¬ 
wardly Seymour regretted that he had not left her 
alone longer with her grief. 

‘Til leave it to you, ma’am,” he said as she 
came to take his order. “Whatever is easiest for 
you in the way of a square meal.” 

She murmured an apology for Gold’s scanty 

markets, but thought she’d be able to feed him 

183 


184 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


without falling back on the can-opener. Bread 
had been baked that morning, she told him, as she 
set out a stack of soft slices. But she could not 
speak as encouragingly about the butter’s age. 

Seymour liked her voice, understanding its sad 
inflection, and he could feel full sympathy for her 
wan smile. Fortunately the range was directly in 
front of his seat; he could study her without seem¬ 
ing rude as she placed a steak to broil and sliced 
potatoes for a raw-fry. 

In the course of his intent study of her, his hope 
grew that something valuable could be drawn from 
her. With the second sip of coffee, he broke 
bluntly into the matter in hand. “Well, they got 
poor Bart at last, I see!” he remarked. 

He could see that he had startled her, as he had 
intended to do. She looked at him sharply, as if 
to make sure he was the stranger she had taken 
him to be. For a moment he feared she was going 
to break into tears, but with an effort she con¬ 
trolled herself, evidently being no stranger to sor¬ 
row. 

“You knew Bart—the sergeant?” she asked, 
choking back a sob. 




RICHER THAN GOLD 


185 


“In a way of speaking—yes,” said Seymour. 
“I know that he was not an officer of the Royal 
Mounted.” 

With uncertain steps she felt her way along the 
lunch counter. 

“Not—not an officer?” she faltered. “Why, 
what do you mean, sir?” 

“Just what I say, madam. What’s more, I 
know that Bart’s sudden taking makes you a sure- 
enough widow, instead of a pretended one. You 
have my deepest sympathy, Mrs. Caswell.” 

To himself, Seymour justified his seeming 
harshness of utterance on grounds of professional 
necessity; that there might be real mercy for the 
woman also involved, in case he succeeded in 
breaking through her reserve, was another consid- 
ation. Everything depended upon her reaction to 
this “shot” assertion. He had followed her on a 
hunch bred of her emotions at the imposter’s bier. 
Old man Cato had given him a plausible reason 
for her showing of grief. While studying her 
when she stood over the range, however, the idea 
had come to him that she had been Bart Caswell’s 
wife. He was prepared to be shown that the 




186 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


woman herself was not a criminal, even by inclina¬ 
tion. In fact, he was predisposed to believe that 
she would prove essentially honest. 

“You’re wrong, stranger-—wrong on both 
counts!” the woman replied. She had steadied 
herself, was forcing her voice to hold an even tone. 
Seymour could not yet be sure that his hunch was 
right. 

“Mr. Seymour was a staff-sergeant,” she went 
on. “The coward that murdered him will learn 
that to his sorrow when Russell’s mates come from 
headquarters to avenge his death. As for my be¬ 
ing his widow-” She essayed a little laugh 

that was almost too much a strain upon her his¬ 
trionic powers. “I’m not saying what might have 
come to pass had not death stepped in; but as it 
stands, he was just a brave friend and a good¬ 
paying boarder.” 

A moment the sergeant merely stared at her; 
then he leaned along the counter toward her. 
“You’d like to see your brave friend’s slayer pun¬ 
ished, wouldn’t you?” 

A dash of fury lit her worn face; her teeth 





RICHER THAN GOLD 


187 


clicked ominously and her small, work-roughened 
hands clinched. 

fi Td give the world if it were mine and count it 
well spent!” she cried. “If ever I find out 
who—” She checked herself, evidently fearing 
that she was going too far in behalf of a “brave 
friend and a good-paying boarder.” 

“Then tell me all you can about Bart, his recent 
movements and what he had planned for the 
future,” urged Seymour quietly. “I’m here to get 
the man who killed him, Mrs. Caswell.” 

Probably it was more his repetition of that 
“Mrs. Caswell” than his declaration of purpose 
that suddenly unnerved her. It was such convinc¬ 
ing indication that her denials had not been be¬ 
lieved. She sank into a chair that stood by the 
front window and buried her face in her hands. 
She looked so hopeless that Seymour’s heart was 
wrung with pity for her. His hunch had been 
right, but there was no need now to press it unfeel¬ 
ingly. She should have all the time she needed 
for sobbing readjustment. 

“How come you to think you know so much 




188 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


about him—about us?” she asked presently with¬ 
out looking up. 

“I know, ma’am. I am the real Russell Sey¬ 
mour—the sergeant whose uniform he wore.” 

His mask was off. He had been more frank 
than at first he intended to be, but, in all circum¬ 
stances, he considered the temporary secret of his 
identity safe with her. 

Bart’s widow started up in her chair. “Here so 
soon!” she exclaimed. 

“Not soon enough, though, I’m sorry to say. If 
the Force had planted a detachment here with the 
first Chinook, probably your husband would not 
have been tempted to hold up the B. C. X.” 

Mrs. Caswell groaned in her anguish. “You 
know—about—about that, too?” 

“Naturally. How else would he get possession 
of my uniform? Tell me, madam; what did he ex¬ 
pect to gather in when he held up the baggage 
stage? It’s a cinch that he couldn’t have known 
that my clothes were in transit.” 

But the little woman was not persuaded to 
answer at once. Seymour had to show her his 
official shield, which he had taken from its place 




RICHER THAN GOLD 


189 


of concealment in his trail pack when he stabled 
the horses before the inquest. He went to some 
pains, also, to show her that although she was an 
accessory after the crime, no charge would be 
placed against her if she helped in unraveling the 
latest murder. 

He pointed out that, in view of the stolen uni¬ 
form in which Bart had been killed, she could not 
hope to prevent the fatal stage robbery from being 
laid to him. 

6 ‘But I can save his memory the disgrace of a 
brutal murder!” the widow cried, as though sud¬ 
denly persuaded that the officer was a genuine one. 
She fluttered out of her chair into a more con¬ 
fidential position at the counter. 

“Bart did shoot Ben Tabor but he had to fire 
in self-defense. It was his life or Tabor’s; he 
made a brave man’s choice.” She paused a mo¬ 
ment to catch a sob that seemed determined to 
escape, then proceeded to eulogize as best she 
might. “Bart Caswell was the gentlest of men. I 
never knew of his harming a soul before. Except 
for his wrong idea that the wotld owed him a liv- 




190 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


ing and his peculiar way of collecting it, there is 
nothing that could he said against him.” 

“Fm ready to be shown, Mrs. Caswell,” the ser¬ 
geant encouraged her. 

He listened then to the old, old story of the 
double-cross in a new setting and with unusual 
variations. The First Bank of Gold, according to 
the widow, used considerable currency in its pur¬ 
chase of dust from the miners. To guard against 
robbery, the shipments were made in supposed 
secrecy by the weekly baggage stage, but the driver 
knew of the valuable load he carried occasionally. 
Caswell and Tabor had been friends in Vancouver 
before either came into the north country and soon 
after their meeting in Gold, the robbery had been 
planned. 

Bart had “stuck” the stage at the agreed point, 
only to be told by Tabor that the expected $30,000 
shipment for that week had been withheld. Not 
then suspicious, Bart had accepted the statement 
as fact, expressed his hope that they’d have better 
luck next time, and was disappearing into the 
brush when Tabor fired upon him. The bullet 
struck a silver plate in Bart’s back that had been 




RICHER THAN GOLD 


191 


placed there to repair a wound received during a 
Seattle gun-fight some years before. 

The blow staggered him, but he was uninjured. 
Turning as his friend was in the act of firing again, 
he had brought down the traitor with a single 
shot. 

A hurried search of the express book showed 
that the currency shipment had been made. Driv¬ 
ing the stage off the trail, Bart had examined the 
load thoroughly but had found no bank package. 
He concluded that Tabor had concealed it some¬ 
where along the trail, meaning to get the whole of 
the loot for himself after putting the blame on the 
friend he expected to kill. 

Watchful for flaws in the widow’s account, Sey¬ 
mour seized upon a seeming one. “But if Bart 
had been killed in the brush, no loot would have 
been found on him,” he pointed out. “Tabor still 
would have been held responsible for the cur¬ 
rency.” 

“They had planned in advance,” she smiled 
wearily, “that Tabor should report his stage 
robbed by three masked men. He need only have 




192 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


sworn that the other two got away with the bank 
package.” 

Seymour made mental note of at least one way 
of checking up on Mrs. Caswell’s account, then 
asked her about the uniform. 

“Your bag was the only thing on the wagon that 
Bart thought might be of use to him,” she admit¬ 
ted with an air of frankness that was convincing. 
“He brought it here—to a room he was supposed 
to have been renting from me—in the half story 
above the restaurant. When I found him there 
trying on the suit, he told me about his hard luck.” 

The sergeant felt that the crux of the interview 
was approaching, but meant to get at it gradually, 
retaining the full advantage of the confidence he 
had established. 

“The idea of impersonating an officer of the 
Mounted—was that merely to assure him a get¬ 
away for the Tabor killing?” he asked. 

“Partly to delay an investigation of that by pre¬ 
tending to have undertaken it himself; more to 
help him in another enterprise he had in view up 
the creeks.” 

Considering a moment, Seymour ventured: 




RICHER THAN GOLD 


193 


“Having failed in landing the bank currency, he 
was going after gold in the raw, perhaps?” 

“He told me there was something richer than 
go l d -” 

The noisy opening of the street door interrupted. 
They glanced up to see Cato entering. Looking 
like a horrid gnome, with his long arms dangling 
almost to the ground from his misshapen shoul¬ 
ders, the ox driver advanced to a stool one re¬ 
moved from Seymour. Upon this he pulled 
himself, after giving his neighbor the merest of 
nods. From the odor of his breath, he evidently 
had fortified himself for this untimely visit with 
bottled courage. He leered at the widow as if he 
considered himself assured of welcome now that 
his attractive rival had been eliminated. 

“ ’Tis a starving man you see before you, Mary, 
Queen of Scots,” he declared. “But a starving 
man with a jingle in his pockets. With all the 
goings-on in camp, I’m rejoiced that the Home is 
open for serving meals that is meals.” 

Recalling the hope which Cato had expressed 
on the street a short while before, Seymour won¬ 
dered how long he would have to wait for an 





194 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


opportunity to finish his interview. He attacked 
the steak that had been neglected, hoping that the 
old man would be too engrossed in his “chances” 
to notice that the meat was cold. 

“I haven’t forgotten that second cup of coffee, 
sir,” the widow had presence of mind enough to 
offer. “If you’ll be wishing for supper this eve¬ 
ning, please come in by eight as I’ll he closing 
early.” 

Seymour took this as both his dismissal and an 
appointment for the widow to finish. Until eight 
o’clock, then, he would have to wait to know what 
Bart Caswell had in mind that was richer than 
gold and was to he had on the Creeks of Argo¬ 
naut with the aid of a Royal Canadian police 
uniform. 




CHAPTER XVIII 


A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 

From the Home Restaurant, the sergeant went 
to the stables where already he had made his 
horses comfortable. He secured a clothes poke 
from the pack of his outfit. The Bonanza Hotel 
proved advantageously informal in that he was 
asked “two dollars a night in advance,” instead 
of being confronted with a register for his name 
and address. A key, attached to a tin disk too large 
for any normal pocket, was tossed to him by the 
grouchy boniface, who informed him he would 
find No. 12 at the head of the stairs. 

Opening a canvas door supported on a pair of 
leather hinges, Seymour entered a tiny room 
lighted by a single window. It was furnished to 
the minimum with a blanketed cot, a chair and a 
table of the roughest construction. 

As he sat on the edge of the cot, he recalled the 
crowded events of the life that had been his in 

the few months since the strangulation of Oliver 
195 


196 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


O’Malley. Up at Armistice post, by now, the first 
mail must have arrived. Constable La Marr 
would know that a “court” was about to start from 
Ottawa to give Olespe of the Lady Franklin band 
a trial for his life. He’d know, too, that Avic 
would not be tried just then because the case 
against him would be incomplete without the tes¬ 
timony of Harry Karmack, the fugitive factor 
who undoubtedly had robbed the Arctic Trading 
Company. And when would he find Karmack— 
when and where? And Moira O’Malley, when 
would she arrive in Gold to join her bereaved 
father until that capture time? 

The events of the day, however, were too stres¬ 
sing for his practical mind to long concern itself 
with anything but the matter immediately at hand. 

“Richer than gold!” The last words of the 
widow kept recurring to his thoughts. What could 
this presumptuous crook of the wilds have had in 
mind? The sergeant could think, of course, of 
commodities that were more precious than the yel¬ 
low metal, but of none that were indigenous to 
that upper corner of British Columbia. 

So he puzzled over the remark until he con- 




A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


197 


eluded that Bart must have used a figure of 
speech. He would await the widow’s interpre¬ 
tation. 

Seymour was not surprised to find that he did 
not think of Mrs. Caswell as a participant in Bart’s 
outlawry. Without protestations of innocence or 
any oral plea that she had tried in vain to reform 
the daring rascal, she had acquitted herself of 
culpability. The weary lines in the face that must 
have been beautiful not so long ago, the haunted 
look in her dark eyes, even her superb first effort 
at denial had won the Mountie’s sympathy. 

A knock on the canvas door of his room inter¬ 
rupted his study of the local situation. Arising, 
he unhooked the latch, whereupon the improvised 
door swung inward of its own weight and the ac¬ 
cord of its makeshift hinges. 

Disclosed in the frame, filling it perpendicu¬ 
larly but sadly lacking in horizontal proportions, 
stood a gaunt, miner-clad figure, distinguished by 
a pair of deep-set eyes which burned like living 
coals and a shock of white hair which waved its 
freedom when his slouch hat was removed. 

“Will you pardon me, stranger; no intrusion 




198 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


meant.” The voice was soft and a smile of utmost 
benignity came into play. “In the midst of life, 
we are in death.” 

“The missionary—Moira O’Malley’s father and 
the uncle of the morning’s colorful trailmate!” 
was Seymour’s instant thought; but he gave no sign 
of the presumed recognition. 

“Safe enough statement in this camp to-day,” 
he said to his visitor. 

“I’m the sky-pilot of these diggings,” the other 
announced in a pulpit voice that rumbled through 
the hall. 

“Won’t you come in, sir?” 

The missionary declined with a shake of his 
head. “I must hasten on my weekly rounds, dis¬ 
tributing lessons from the Word. Won’t you ac¬ 
cept one of these and promise me to read it?” He 
held out a small tract taken from a handful which 
he carried. 

The sergeant glanced at the title: “What Shall 

It Profit a Man-” He smiled tolerantly, 

thinking what a queer yet lovable character his 
future life’s companion had for a parent. 

“It is not meet that we should be seen in con- 






A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


199 


ference,” O’Malley’s voice had been lowered to 
a whisper; then suddenly it boomed so that all 
beneath the roof might hear: “I trust you will read 
that tract, brother—read and profit thereby.” And 
with that, he stalked down the hall as though in 
search of other needy souls. 

Seymour watched him. On getting no answer 
from the next door, the gaunt frame stooped to 
slip a tract under it. At another a woman an¬ 
swered his knock and a “sister” was informed that 
in the midst of life she was in death. 

Back in his room, Seymour pondered the single 
whispered sentence with which the sky pilot varied 
what evidently were his wonted words when dis¬ 
tributing tracts. Had Moira written that he had 
started for Gold and that he knew more than any¬ 
one in the world about the family’s Arctic tragedy? 

But that was impossible, for he had been able 
to spend but a moment with the girl when orders 
came to him at Montreal to report at once to the 
assistant commissioner in command of “E” Divi¬ 
sion at Vancouver. Seymour himself had not 
known then that he would eventually arrive in 
plain clothes at her father’s mission station. 




200 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


What, then, could the whisper mean unless there 
was a message—temporal rather than spiritual— 
for him hidden somewhere in the pamphlet? 

But when he shook its leaves, no enclosure 
dropped out. He examined the margins without 
raising a sign. The inside back cover was blank 
but nothing had been written thereon. He remem¬ 
bered that the missionary had picked the tract 
seemingly at random from a pack of several dozen 
and he was discouraged. 

Still, the whisper persisted. “It is not meet 
that we be seen in conference”—he recalled every 
significant word of it. Surely such words had not 
been spoken at random. Drawing the chair to the 
window, he sat down and began a more intensive 
study of the printed sheet. Soon, an ink dot be¬ 
neath a letter rewarded him; then others. Pre¬ 
sently he picked out a sequence of dotted letters 
spelling “P-a-r-d-o-n.” 

The process reminded him of reading sun-helio¬ 
graph or taking a blinker message at night. Un¬ 
doubtedly the communication was of importance 
that the girl should have gone to such trouble to 
assure secrecy. The uncle, too, must have shared 




A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


201 


the secret or he could not have been trusted to pick 
out the message-dotted tract. From his clothes 
poke, the sergeant took out a writing pad and with 
his pencil set the indicated letters into words, with 
this final result: 

P-a-r-d-o-n m-y v-a-m-o-s-e a-n-d c-u-t B-o-t-h 
f-o-r g-o-o-d o-u-r c-a-u-s-e B-a-r-t s-a-i-d y-o-u 
e-o-m-i-n-g t-o h-e-l-p N-o-w m-u-s-t c-a-r-r-y o-n 
a-l-o-n-e B-e c-a-r-e-f-u-1 K-e-e-p s-i-l-e-n-t C-o-m-e 
o-u-r c-a-b-i-n 1-a-t-e t-o-n-i-g-h-t G-r-e-e-n 
R-i-v-e-r a-t G-l-a-c-i-e-r R-u-t-h D-u-p-e-r-o-w. 

The message amazed him on more than one 
count. She had “left him cold” at the point of 
discovery and later on refused to recognize him 
on the streets of Gold for the good of “our cause.” 
What cause? Unless that was her way of indi¬ 
cating law and order, he knew of no cause they 
had in common. Again, he was to “carry on 
alone.” What did she expect him to carry on? 

Of course, he meant to carry on until he had 
the man who would have kidnapped Moira 
O’Malley, except for the enactments of the snows. 
But why go back to Moira? This cousin was of 




202 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


a different type. Beautiful, to be sure, but not 
his sort of beauty—not the sort that thrilled and 
held him. He stopped ruminating with a jerk. 

Almost had he forgot- 

Most puzzling of all was that “Bart said you 
were coming.” Who did she think he was, any¬ 
way? That she had made a faulty surmise of 
some sort was evidenced by the fact that she still 
held the crook at his assumed sergeancy value. 

As for the rest of the message, nothing would 
please him better than to accept the strangely sent 
invitation to call. It would mean getting in touch 
with Moira quicker than he could hope to do if he 
continued his incognito role in the camp. 

Seymour turned his attention for some time, 
then, to an intensive study of the blue print map 
of the district which he had purchased at the sur¬ 
veyor’s office on riding into Gold that morning. 
His hope was to find a way toward the creeks after 
nightfall without asking questions. 

His morning course to the point where he had 
overtaken the boyish-looking rider was easily 
traced, and thence into town. Working back, he 
found the trail over which Ruth Duperow had 





A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


203 


come and followed that to the mouth of Glacier 
Creek. Evidently the girl, for some reason, had 
taken a roundabout course that morning, for he 
found that a more direct trail to town followed 
the Cheena. His acquaintance with the Indian 
tongue was sufficient to spare him the map-maker’s 
mistake of adding the word river to a name that 
really included it in the “na” suffix. 

From such detail as was drawn into the map, he 
judged that Glacier was not much of a creek. It 
appeared to start in a nest of glaciers and to flow 
through a canon as from the neck of a bottle. Be¬ 
tween the Cheena and the canon was drawn a 
square with a legend, “Indian Mission.” That no 
mining claims were marked off on this creek, al¬ 
though those surrounding it were well staked, 
seemed remarkable; but the stranger did not try 
to guess the answer. 

For no other reason than that the name had 
lodged in his mind, Seymour sought out Hoodoo 
Creek on the map and found the claim accredited 
to Cato—Thirteen Above. If the long-armed ox- 
man cited it in advancing his hopes with the 




204 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


widow, Seymour hoped that the number would 
exert its supposedly baleful influence. 

From the blue-print, he turned to writing a 
report to his chief in Vancouver to whom word of 
the murder of his “Staff-Sergeant Russell Sey¬ 
mour” had undoubtedly been sent without delay. 
He took a grim sort of enjoyment in an opening 
after Mark Twain: 

“I have the honor to state my safe arrival in 
Gold, B. C. Any reports of my violent death that 
may reach you are slightly exaggerated.” 

In the terse English that has made mounted 
police reports models of modesty, he told how he 
had “run into” two murder mysteries in addi¬ 
tion to the embezzlement case which had brought 
him from the Far North. One of these, with its 
accompanying stage robbery, he believed he had 
solved except for stray angles that did not affect 
the capital crime. He was at work on the second 
murder case, with fair progress. 

Over his final paragraph, which was headed 
“Suggestions,” according to the form followed by 
the Force in official communications, he pondered 
deeply. Whatever he wrote there, he had reason 




A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


205 


to believe, would be incorporated into an order 
soon after passing under Assistant Commissioner 
Baxter’s eyes. On this particular independent 
command, he was anxious not to make mistakes. 
Finally he wrote: 

“Am not prepared to pass judgment, at this 
time, on the permanency of Gold. From 
what I have seen, however, the district sadly 
needs Dominion policing. Would suggest 
that you send at your earliest convenience one 
(1) sergeant and two (2) constables, mount¬ 
ed and with suitable camp equipment. As I 
may be working under cover on this second, 
unsolved murder, please instruct the sergeant 
to make camp on his own responsibility and 
act accordingly until he hears from me. Tell 
him to disregard reports of my demise as 
unfounded and-” 

A strident “Come in!” evidently in answer to a 
knock he had not heard, sounded in the adjoin¬ 
ing room and caused him to raise his pen from the 
paper with the sentence incomplete. 

“Hello Brewster, glad I found you in.” 

The shrilled greeting was in an unmistakable 
voice. Its wording informed Seymour that the 





206 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


agreeable freighter of his morning’s acquaintance 
was his immediate hotel neighbor. 

“What can I do for you, Hardley, you honor¬ 
able strong arm of the law?” 

The voice was Brewster’s—the same that had 
remarked the thinness of the tar-paper partitions. 
They were veritable sounding boards. Seymour 
could hear every word. 

“Wanted to ask your advice, Phil, about some 
points in this Mountie’s murder.” 

The genuine sergeant winced involuntarily. It 
was a very bad joke. He doubted that he ever 
would become accustomed to Sergeant Seymour 
spoken of as murdered—done for. 

“Shoot,” he heard Brewster invite. 

“It’s this way, Phil. Seymour must have been 
quite a responsible member of the Force. As you 
said this a. m., his snuffing is going to make a noisy 
roar-back. I got to report it to somebody in the 
Mounted—but who and whereat?” 

Seymour fidgeted uneasily in the silence that 
followed, evidently due to Brewster’s considering 
his answer. Pie detested eavesdropping; never 
had resorted to it on any of his cases. By way of 




A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


207 


letting the two in the adjoining room know of his 
presence, he scraped his chair noisily over the bare 
floor. This warning, however, failed to check 
Brewster, or even to lower his voice. 

“I remember reading that Vancouver is the 
nearest staff-office of this new Canadian Mounted 

Police, but I’ve just been thinking-If they send 

a lot of Mounties into Gold and run down these 
stage-robbing murderers, you’re not going to get 
any credit. I’m strong for home industry, even 
in justice. Why don’t you delay reporting the ser¬ 
geant’s death until you land your man?” 

“Say you’re a real friend, Phil, even if you 
do try to ride me sometimes. I need the credit for 
turning a trick like that. It might make me sheriff 
when the old man gets through. But—but would I 
dare?” 

Seymour started for the hall but on the way, 
heard Brewster’s reply: 

“Write your report, Sam, but don’t post it until 
after tomorrow’s mail has gone. That’ll give you 
a week. Then address the letter to Ottawa, which 
will give you a few days more. In that time, you 
ought to have the murderers rounded up. You 





208 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


can forget what I told you about there being any 
Vancouver headquarters.” 

Surprise at such advice from a seemingly pub¬ 
lic-spirited citizen delayed Seymour’s knock until 
he had heard it through. Of course, all this might 
be merely a sign of real, though mistaken, friend¬ 
ship for Hardley. On the other hand, was it pos¬ 
sible that Brewster had personal reasons for wish¬ 
ing to delay the coming of the Mounted? 

With this question to the fore of his mind, Sey¬ 
mour knocked on the adjoining door and was in¬ 
vited in. His entry seemed not to disturb either 
of the two. 

46 Just wanted to tell you that the next room is 
occupied and that the partition between is more 
or less of a megaphone,” he said in a light tone. 
“If you’ve any secrets-” 

Brewster’s laugh was natural enough to be re¬ 
assuring. “If we were talking secrets, stranger, 
we’d take to the brush. I’ve lived in the Bonanza 
since the day it was opened, and I don’t even think 
secrets behind these make-believe walls.” 

The sergeant dismissed his unintentional eaves¬ 
dropping with a shrug and turned to the deputy. 





A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


209 


“Out on the trail this morning you seemed to think 
you might want me later. You’ll know now where 
to find me—Room number twelve.” 

“Forget this a. m., old topper. I was maybe a 
little mite excited out there at the scene of the 
crime. There ain’t sech a lot of difference between 
deputy sheriffs and mounted sergeants. It might- 
a been me lying there deader than dead. Your 
happening along looked sort of queer. I’m see¬ 
ing straighter now. You’re welcome to Gold and 
I hope you get what you come for.” 

“You’ll find me strong for law and order,” 
Seymour replied. 

This seemed to invite Hardley to real confi¬ 
dences. Beckoning Seymour from the doorway, 
he edged his chair closer to the cot on which 
Brewster reclined in his stockinged feet. 

“Don’t mind telling you two in confidence,” he 
leaned forward and whispered, “that I’m in a fair 
way to nabbing the two who robbed the stage and 
killed Tabor and Seymour. Maybe I ain’t seemed 
to be doing much, but I’ve got clews to bum al¬ 
ready.” 




210 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“You have?” cried Brewster, hunching himself 
into a sitting position on the cot. 

Hardley nodded assuredly. “There were two 
of them in the bush lying for the sergeant this 
morning. One had a Winchester 30-30 and used 
it to kill Seymour. One rode a horse that was 
shod in front but plain behind.” He paused, evi¬ 
dently, from his expression, to collect the 
encomiums he considered his due. 

“Important if true, Sam,” Brewster observed. 

“Quick work,” admitted the Mountie, honestly 
surprised; his hand was in the trousers pocket that 
held the cartridge case picked up that morning. 
“How in the world did you learn all that?” 

Hardley seemed to relish supplying the details, 
even though he had to whisper them. Apparently 
he had forgotten that one of his confidants was 
an utter stranger both to him and to the camp, 
one whose name even he did not know. His was 
country-official vanity advanced to the nth degree. 

“Dr. Pratt dug out the bullet, which fixed the 
brand of the gun with which the deed was done. 
Then I’ve got a half-breed boy on my staff who’s 
keen as a Gordon setter in the bush. He found 




A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


211 


the horse track of the two from the scene of the 
crime. Now Fm looking for a man with a 30-30 
repeater and a horse that’s shy on shoes.” 

Surprised that Hardley should have shown so 
much initiative, and apprehensive that he was 
getting too near “home” for comfort, Seymour 
framed a diverting question. 

“What do you know about the chap who was 
killed?” 

“You mean this last one—Staff-Sergeant Sey¬ 
mour?” asked the deputy in turn, but merely as a 
preface, not waiting for an answer. “Kirby of the 
First Bank has heard of him. Says he was nick¬ 
named ‘Sergeant Scarlet’ up in the Northwest 
territories, and is guilty of some of the hardest 
patrols ever made. He must have been a regular 
fighting machine. Autopsy proved that.” 

Sergeant Scarlet! That was the nickname Moira 
had given him! But others, to be sure, had used 
it before his beautiful Irisher. Perhaps his repu¬ 
tation as a man-getter had spread further than he 
knew. 

Anyway, his chance to check up on Widow Cas¬ 
well had arrived sooner than he expected. He 




212 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


showed casual but sufficient interest in the dis¬ 
closures mentioned. 

“The sergeant had been under fire before, and 
more than once,” declared Hardley. “The doc¬ 
tor found a silver plate bracing his spine high up 
between the shoulders. And, would you believe 
it, there was a dent in that plate which looked as 
if he’d been hit in the identical repair spot by 
some later bullet!” 

“Checked to a T,” thought Seymour of the 
widow’s tale. 

He became more than ever anxious to be clear 
of the talkative deputy. With all his false sur¬ 
mises, the natural-bom bungler had corralled some 
accurate information and might make a deal of 
trouble for him. At first chance he got back to 
his room. 

With a few swift strokes, he completed and 
signed his report. His 0. C. must be prepared for 
that murder report, whether Hardley finally acted 
on Brewster’s advice or not. 

Hunying from the hotel into King Street, Sey¬ 
mour found the post office and mailed his letter. 
Then, although the hour was only seven, he ad- 




A CRYPTIC MESSENGER 


213 


vanced casually upon the Home Restaurant. He 
was eager to be on his way to the creeks before 
Hardley stumbled, as possibly he might, upon the 
fact that Seymour’s rifle, stored with his outfit, was 
a 30-30 and that Kaw was “shod in front and 
plain behind.” 




CHAPTER XIX 


INTO THE NIGHT 

“You were saying, Mrs. Caswell-” 

Seymour’s wait at one of the Home’s small 
tables had been long drawn. The slender widow 
was worked “ragged” to cook and serve the tide 
of customers that, by perverse chance, had set in 
particularly strong that evening. 

Fortunately, all were strangers to the sergeant 
and he congratulated himself that he had at¬ 
tracted only passing notice as he sat seemingly 
absorbed in an old fiction magazine, with his cof¬ 
fee never quite finished before him. He had 
gained nothing by coming early, for it was nearly 
nine o’clock when at last they found themselves 
alone. 

“Are you too tired to talk, Mrs. Caswell? 
You’ve had a hard day,” the sergeant interrupted 
himself. The widow smiled wanly, a grateful 
light in her eyes, but replied that she would pre¬ 
fer to “have it over with.” 

214 



INTO THE NIGHT 


215 


“Let me see,” she considered, for appearance’s 
sake supporting her weary self by leaning over a 
stool, instead of sitting down at the table beside 
him. “Where was I this afternoon when that old 
pest broke in?” 

“I trust you punctured Cato’s hopes?” The 
sergeant could not resist the momentary digres¬ 
sion. 

“The presuming ox had been drinking,” she 
said. “He gave me,—well, let’s call it an argu¬ 
ment; but I had the last word. He’ll not come 
bothering around here again.” 

After a smile and nod of approval, Seymour re- 
turned to their unfinished business. “You were 
telling me what Bart had in view up the creeks. 
Something ‘richer than gold’—wasn’t that the way 
you put it?” 

“His very words,” the widow went on in the 
glow of loving reminiscence. “Naturally, I was 
curious, for I thought the gold was all there was 
worth while up here. I asked him what he meant.” 
With that, her lips were stilled and a dreamy look 
came into her eyes. 

The sergeant did not believe that she had paused 




216 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


with aggravating intent, or even from any sense of 
the dramatic. Doubtless, her thoughts were with 
the departed rogue. But that was no place at all 
for her to stop; he just couldn’t wait longer to 
learn what in Gold was richer than gold. 

“Yes—yes!” he prodded, glancing at his watch 
to suggest a time reason for his hurry. 

“Why, Bart just took me into his arms in a 
gentle, big-bear way he had—at times—and said 
—I’ll never forget; it made me so happy.” 

Again she was living over what evidently had 
been the big moment of her recent life; but that 
fact did not ease in the least Seymour’s present 
impatience. 

“Well, what did he say?” 

“Bart said— 6 All you’ll care to know. Marge 
old dear, is that I’m going to put something over 
in the name of the law and within it. I’m going to 
rectify a wrong. In the name of the Royal 
Mounted, I’m going to loot some looters.’ That’s 
what Bart said, and you can understand, Mr. Ser¬ 
geant, how happy it made me.” 

For another brief moment, Margaret Caswell 
succeeded in forgetting her recent bereavement. 




INTO THE NIGHT 


217 


“That talk was the morning after the unfortu¬ 
nate stage—business,” she went on with just a lit¬ 
tle break in her voice at the mention of the crime. 
“Bart went forth in his borrowed uniform to es¬ 
tablish himself at the hotel as befits an officer. He 
dropped in here for supper and we had a fine talk. 
He told me that nobody seemed to doubt his au¬ 
thority and that the whole camp was breathing 
easier at sight of the scarlet and gold.” 

Exactly like a woman to be accurate about the 
clothes he wore, thought Seymour, and he pic¬ 
tured the swath the handsome crook must have 
cut in the new camp all excited with its first big 
crime. 

“Bart knew that he would have to work fast,” 
the woman was saying. “From letters or orders 
he found in the bag, he was aware that you would 
soon be coming in plain clothes. In spite of the 
fact that he would be acting in the name of the Law 
and that all his so-called lifting would be from 
Montreal crooks, he’d be forced to make a get¬ 
away over the Alaskan border, from there to catch 
some through steamer to the States.” 

“Montreal crooks!” More than ever was Sey- 




218 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


mour now interested. Was it possible that, in that 
inexplicable way of the almost trackless wilds, 
his trail here would cross that of Harry Karmack’s 
—that his unsolved assignment might be completed 
and his pact with Moira validated? Harry Kar- 
mack, he well knew, had been hand in glove with 
the worst of Montreal’s underworld characters, 
although there the lawless element had been able 
to cover the embezzler. 

But the woman was going on: “It was agreed 
that I’d stay right here running this eating place, 
until I heard from him. You see, it was safe 
enough, for we had been very careful and no one 
suspected that there was any relationship. After 
that evening, I never saw Bart again to speak to.” 

That she might not yield to this call upon her 
emotions, Seymour put out a couple of rapid fire 
questions. “You think, then, that one of these so- 
called Montreal crooks got him? Any line on 
them?” 

“No line,” she answered regretfully, after a 
moment’s thought: “None at all, unless—There’s 
a young woman he met up the creeks, a mission¬ 
ary’s relative, I believe. I saw her speak to him 




INTO THE NIGHT 


219 


one day on King Street and, of course, he had to 
explain. He met her when he was just plain Bar¬ 
ton Caswell and was out prospecting. From her 
uncle, he learned of the wrongs being done by the 
Montreal gang, but until that uniform fell into his 
hands, he did not conceive any way of getting the 
best of them. Perhaps these missionary folks can 
help you.” 

Evidently Bart had played his cards with the 
■skill of an expert, thought Seymour. From the 
widow’s impassioned admission she held no 
grudge against the Duperow girl. There had been 
no hint of slur in her tones that mentioned the 
younger, prettier woman. All this suggested that 
she must have had implicit faith in the crook’s 
love for her. 

Declaring his intention of looking up the mis¬ 
sion folks, the sergeant returned to the subject 
of the loot. Had she asked no further about the 
nature of it? 

“I surely did, but his answer was always the 
same. ‘Richer than gold. Marge, richer than gold. 9 
He said he’d be the first mounted policeman in the 
history of the Force to make a clean-up, even if 




220 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


he was one only for a week. This stroke was to 
mean luxury for me, a home in an orange grove 
in California, diamond rings set in platinum, fine 
dresses—everything! I think this morning, when 
he rode out so bravely, that he hoped never to come 
back to Gold. The loot is up there in the creeks, 
you know, and Alaska is still further on. Any 
hour the real staff-sergeant—who has turned out 
to be you—might have ridden in, as, in truth, you 
did.” 

Satisfied that the bandit’s widow withheld noth¬ 
ing worth while, Seymour was anxious to be off 
about the invitation which Ruth Duperow had 
“dotted” to him. He felt, however, that he owed 
Bart’s widow something for the information which, 
once she started to impart it, had been given so 
frankly. He was minded to pay at once, even if 
the coin thereof was only good advice. 

“For the present, you had best sit tight here and 
say nothing, Mrs. Caswell,” he began. “I sup¬ 
pose it was easy come, easy go with Bart; that he 
leaves you practically nothing. From what I’ve 
seen of your trade this evening, you have a pay- 




INTO THE NIGHT 


221 


ing proposition in the restaurant. I don’t see any 
reason why you can’t go on with it.” 

“But when people know-” 

“Maybe they need never know that Bart was any¬ 
thing but a boarder,” Seymour interposed hope¬ 
fully. “You seem to have guarded your secret 
well when even infatuated old Cato didn’t suspect 
your man of being more than a suitor.” 

The little woman had been too distressed to give 
thought to her own future; naturally she seemed 
uncertain about it. Then suddenly the flame of 
that love which was beyond Seymour’s comprehen¬ 
sion, but within his appreciation, flared to decision. 

“But they will have to know if I save Bart’s 
reputation!” she cried. “I’ll not have the world 
think he killed that double-crossing stage driver in 
anything but defense of his own life.” 

Here was complication which disturbed the 
plans that the Mountie, impelled by his rugged con¬ 
viction that every person was entitled to a square 
deal, had been making for her. He had no time 
to argue with her, so went on to impress her with 
what was vital to his own operations. 

He could work to a better advantage toward the 





222 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


capture of Bart’s slayer if the double unmasking 
was delayed. Her promise to say nothing until he 
gave her leave was his for the asking. The town 
folks would probably arrange an appropriate 
funeral for the dead ‘‘sergeant”; she would need 
to attend as a sorrowing acquaintance, but she 
must keep a tight rein on her emotions if she 
wished to aid in the capture. In this, ordeal 
though it would be, Mrs. Caswell promised to do 
her best. 

As he arose to leave, he offered her his big 
hand. She reached out her small one timidly. 

“I never thought I’d be shaking hands with a 
Mountie,” she confessed in a murmuring voice, 
“I’m afraid I’ve hated you wearers of the scarlet, 
you were so all-sure of getting the men you went 
after and I never knew when Bart would fall into 
your clutches. But now-” 

“That’s all right, ma’am. You’ve helped a lot 
and I only hope I can get this crowd.” He started 
for the door, but remembered one thing more. 
“That war bag of mine—I suppose Bart took it 
to the hotel when he moved. I’ll be needing that 
other uniform when this mystery is cleared.” 





INTO THE NIGHT 


223 


“The bag is still upstairs,” she said quickly. 
“Bart only took some documents and papers be¬ 
sides what he wore. He didn’t know but what his 
identity would be questioned when he suddenly 
changed from a mining expert to a policeman.” 

“And the room—is it rented?” 

She shook her head. 

“Then, if you’ll accept me as a tenant until fur¬ 
ther notice we’ll let the bag stay where it is. The 
rent?” 

“I couldn’t think of taking rent from you when 
you’re working out my revenge,” she said. 

Seymour frowned. “I’m seeing that justice is 
done, madam,” he said, referring to her use of 
the word revenge. “I am teaching Gold the value 
of human life. And I’ll pay for the room—the 
usual rate.” 

To escape further discussion he hurried into the 
fallen night. Pondering the marvelous complexi¬ 
ties of the women met in a day on the “Last Fron¬ 
tier,” he nearly plumped into a mud hole which 
lay out front. Close to the shack lay a beaten 
path; this he followed. At the comer he was edg¬ 
ing into the vacant lot which adjoined, when, with- 




224 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


out a swish of warning, something blacker than 
night fell over him. 

Instinctively he struck out at this blackness, his 
knuckles denting a yielding substance that had a 
fibrous touch. Before he could throw off its en¬ 
veloping folds, he felt a pair of strong arms go 
around his waist. They closed in as with a gath¬ 
ering string. The covering evidently was a horse 
blanket judging by the smell. 

As a sudden surge of fury against such artful 
man-handling lent him strength to thrash about, a 
heavy blow fell upon the back of his head. He felt 
his knees weaken under the shock of it, but clawed 
and strained to break the hold about his waist. A 
second hammering blow descended. His ability to 
struggle failed him. His knees gave way. He was 
sinking into vast depths. The Gold garroters, who¬ 
ever they were and whatever their object, had got 
him. “Scarlet” Seymour was out! 




CHAPTER XX 


morning’s maze 

The awakening of Sergeant Seymour was pain¬ 
ful; never before had he known that a head could 
ache with the throbs that were racking his. Pres¬ 
ently his mind took hold of a fragmentary idea— 
horse-blanket. Upon this, after a mental struggle, 
he was able to spread a picture of his sorry going- 
out at the hands of some mining-camp thugs, 
doubtless intent on robbing him. 

His next wonder was what had awakened him 
and by way of answering that, he opened his eyes 
for a look around, the greatest surprise of which 
was broad daylight. The sun, then, must have 
served as his alarm clock—called him out of that 
night which was darker than any he had ever 
known before. Now its rays were streaming into 
a cabin room in which he lay, fully clad, upon a 
straw-stuffed bunk. 

He did not bother to get up just then; he merely 

lay back on the inadequate pillow of his slouch hat 

225 


226 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


and “listened” to the ache of his head. The idea 
that he had been robbed persisted. To his sur¬ 
prise, he found that the currency belt around his 
waist had not been disturbed. Surely mining 
camp crooks would know where to look for his 
valuables! 

Then he slid his right hand over his chest to feel 
the holster that hung beneath his left arm. Greater 
surprise! His gun lay ready in its usual conceal¬ 
ment. 

The conclusions, painful in their process, were 
at once comforting and disturbing. He had not 
been trimmed or even frisked. Robbery could not 
have been the motive behind the attack outside the 
widow’s restaurant. Then—what? 

Slowly he raised himself to a sitting position 
upon the bare bunk and permitted his eyes to rove 
until they settled upon another shock to his tor¬ 
tured comprehension. This was found in the nar¬ 
row window through which the sun was streaming. 
Iron bars crossed the opening. He must be a 
prisoner in jail. 

“Deputy Sheriff! Samuel Hardley, the strong 
arm of the law!” 




MORNING'S MAZE 


227 


He swung his feet to the floor and took a some¬ 
what wabbly stand. Further survey convinced him 
beyond doubt that he was in the blundering dep¬ 
uty’s one-cell bastile. This proved to be built of 
logs with a door as thick as that of an ice box and 
studded with nails. The two windows were near the 
log ceiling, narrow, oblong and barred. There 
were three bunks along as many walls and a Yukon 
stove in the cell’s center—no other furnishings, 
but enough for a frontier jail. 

So, that was the lay of the cards, he mused 
darkly—the explanation of the surprise attack. 
After their talk in Brewster’s room at the Bonanza, 
the fat deputy must have located Kaw—shod in 
front but plain behind—and his 30-30 rifle which 
he had left in the stable. Hardley had realized, 
then, that his ill-considered revelation of clews 
would have put his man on guard. Learning that 
Seymour, supposed murderer and robber of the 
stage, was in the restaurant he had made ambush 
and effected his arrest along safety-first lines. 

There the deputy’s caution seemed to have 
stopped, thought the sergeant, enjoying again the 
reinforcing feel of his gun. Neglect to search his 




228 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


prisoner was quite in keeping with other official 
blunders which the fat man had made. Seymour 
would have to give Hardley credit, however, for 
effecting a silent, bloodless capture—with a blan¬ 
ket, as he remembered it. 

Full assurance on this point awaited his glance. 
Almost at his feet lay the thing—a worn horse- 
blanket. Possibly the deputy had covered him 
with it before locking him in and, in the restless¬ 
ness of thud-impelled slumber, Seymour had 
kicked it off. 

A bottle that stood on the sheet iron stove invited 
inspection. Even before he picked it up, the stars 
on its label prepared him for the brandy smell 
which a sniff at its neck brought forth. If Hard¬ 
ley had been fortifying his courage with that high- 
powered stuff, it was no wonder he overlooked the 
gun. A drink of the liquor might have strength¬ 
ened Seymour; but he realized he would need all 
his wit in the heated session which he meant should 
begin with the deputy’s arrival at the jail. Lifting 
the stove top, he permitted the pint which remained 
in the bottle to gurgle into the ashes of some long- 
ago fire. 




MORNING’S MAZE 


229 


Seated on the edge of one of the bunks, he took 
stock of the situation. He had missed the late- 
night appointment at the O’Malley cabin on 
Glacier Creek. The missionary folk would think, 
probably, that they had left too much to his intui¬ 
tion in their excess of caution. That, however, 
meant only delay and, while hours were precious, 
he would make up for lost time once free of Hard- 
ley’s detecting. 

It began to look as though he was not a huge suc¬ 
cess as a plain clothes man. He had taken off 
his mask for Bart’s widow. Ruth Duperow evi- 
dendy believed him to be a constable come to aid 
the murdered “sergeant.” Now it seemed likely 
that he would be forced to make a confidant of the 
talkative Hardley in order to be able to carry on 
at all. If Bart had not made the uniform a con¬ 
spicuous target for one bad outfit of that region, 
he’d be tempted to at once climb into the scarlet 
which the bandit had left unworn. Never had he 
liked under-cover patrols, but in this particular 
case, he felt that “civies” were essential. 

An hour had passed since his awakening and he 
was beginning to wonder when the obese deputy 




230 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


fed his prisoners at his perforce boarding house. 
If the surmise taken from the half-filled bottle of 
“Four Star” had been freely partaken, Hardley 
might sleep late that morning and awaken with a 
“head” that would make his visit to the guard 
house a second thought. 

Seymour thought of firing his pistol through the 
window in a hope of attracting attention to his 
plight; he even went so far as to unlimber the 
weapon. But he recalled that he had not the slight¬ 
est idea of where the calaboose was situated, for 
it had not come to his notice in the course of his 
one crowded day in Gold. That it did not stand 
immediately back of the sheriff’s office he was cer¬ 
tain, and it might be on the camp’s outskirts for all 
he knew to the contrary. It seemed the part of 
wisdom to reserve his ammunition; at least to give 
the deputy another half-hour of grace. 

In his impatience to be out and going, the ser¬ 
geant began to pace the floor. Already, his phys¬ 
ical fitness was asserting itself, returning him rap¬ 
idly to normal. There was a pair of bumps on the 
back of his head where the two put-out blows had 
landed, but there was no sign of a scalp wound, 




MORNING’S MAZE 


231 


thanks to the protection the thick blanket had af¬ 
forded. Except for the confining bars and that 
ice-box door, he was entirely able to be out, carry¬ 
ing the law where it sadly was needed. 

On his fourth or fifth round of the small room, 
he paused before the door, seized with a com¬ 
manding impulse to expend his surplus energy in 
beating upon it. He had seen prisoners behave in 
that same futile fashion in his own guard rooms 
and, for the sake of quiet, had put irons on them 
when they persisted. But there was no one in this 
inhospitable place to put irons on him, so he 
yielded to the extent of beating a tattoo on the stout 
planking. 

To his amazement, the door gave slightly under 
his touch, which was no way at all for a self- 
respecting jail door to behave. This “giving” sug¬ 
gested the application of more force. Crouching, 
he put his shoulder to it and the heavy portal 
swung open. He had been “jugged” in an un¬ 
corked “jug,” and there was nothing now to keep 
him from going where and when he listed. 

He delayed just long enough to examine the 
fastenings which had not fastened. A heavy pad- 




232 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


lock hung securely locked in its deep-set staple, but 
the hasp had been left outside, folded back against 
the door. For the first time that morning, Sergeant 
Scarlet smiled; more than that, he grinned. For 
once he was indebted to too much brandy. 

Outside, under the blue sky, he took several 
deep breaths of vitalizing air. He had seen his 
own prisoners do that upon being released from 
confinement, but never understood the impulse as 
he did now. A moment was necessary to get his 
bearings; the jail stood on a knoll a hundred yards 
back from King Street. 

To make tracks out of camp was his first incli¬ 
nation. But at once he rejected any attempt at es¬ 
cape. That would only start Hardley in pursuit, 
probably with that posse the coroner’s jury had 
authorized so superfluously. Rather, he must quiet 
the deputy’s suspicions, even to disclosing his of¬ 
ficial identity, if necessary. Picking his path, he 
strode down the incline to King Street. 

As he neared the Bonanza, he saw Hardley come 
off the porch and waddle in his direction. But at 
first sight of him, the deputy merely added another 
to the morning’s list of surprises. This one took 




MORNING’S MAZE 


233 


the form of a cheerfully waved greeting, as from 
friend to friend. By no stretch of the imagination 
could it have been expected from an officer sight¬ 
ing a prisoner who had just broken out of jail. 
Seymour advanced, puzzled and on guard. 

“You’re out early this morning, stranger,” 
Hardley shrilled when the paces that separated 
them were few. “Just been up to your room look¬ 
ing for you but heard no ‘Come in.’ ” 

The sergeant studied the man a moment, then 
replied: “Sorry I was out. What can I do for 
you, now that you’ve found me?” 

“I noticed yesterday that you have a come-hither 
eye,” went on the deputy in a lower voice. “I’ve 
got a hunch them murdering stage robbers are 
camped in a canon south of town a-ways. Thought 
you might like a little frolic as one of my official 
posse. No danger to speak of, for I’ll be leading 
you and we’ll all be armed to the shoulder-blades. 
Better come if you’ve got the time to spare.” 

That Hardley did not know Seymour had spent 
the night in jail seemed indubitable. The Mounted 
officer could not explain it. Too much to blame 




234 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


upon the brandy this seemed, for the deputy had 
been absolutely sober in Brewster’s room. But ex¬ 
planations could wait. Here was a chance to be 
about his police business without disclosing that he 
had any. 

At once Seymour expressed his regret. He hon¬ 
estly had no time to spare. Hardley could under¬ 
stand how anxious he was to get to the creeks and 
locate something for himself. The deputy should 
have no trouble recruiting enough men, citizens 
who knew the country better than any stranger 
could and who already had staked their claims. 
He was for the law every time—Seymour was, but 
he’d appreciate being excused from service this 
once. 

“Sure, I understand, friend,” agreed the deputy. 
“Be on your way and the best of luck to you. My 
down-river hunch may be all wrong, so keep your 
eyes peeled for a horse that’s shod in front and 
plain behind. The rider of him is the killer of 
Sergeant Seymour, or I’m a liar and as a deputy 
sheriff, not worth the powder to blow me to 
blazes!” 




MORNING’S MAZE 


235 


Half an hour later, a horse that was shod be¬ 
fore and plain behind traveled north out of Gold. 
His rider was Sergeant Seymour himself, not his 
killer. 




CHAPTER XXI 


THE CLOSED CREEK 

By noon, Seymour had his A-tent pitched on the 
hank of the Cheena, between the trail and the 
stream, a few rods below the point where Glacier 
Creek made its indigo-colored contribution. Above 
the scrubby timber spiralled the smoke of the hid¬ 
den mission, to which the officer proposed to pay a 
neighborly call when he had finished the meal of 
bacon and beans which he was preparing. 

Yesterday, O’Malley and his niece had made 
it plain that they wished a conference with him 
to be secret and under cover of night. His un¬ 
explained capture had made that impossible. 
Whether or not their caution was well founded, he 
was unwilling to await the fall of another night. 
He would need to make camp somewhere and felt 
it might better be near enough to excuse an open 
call. Hence he had pitched his tent here. 

But Seymour had done more that morning than 

ride out from Gold five muddy miles and make 
236 


THE CLOSED CREEK 


237 


camp. His years of detachment service had made 
him something of a jack-of-all-trades, and his 
cayuse-packed outfit was comprehensive. Kaw, 
grazing on the lush grass of the meadow, now was 
as neatly shod as he could have been at the hands 
of any blacksmith. No longer was the animal a fit 
subject for Deputy Hardley’s suspicions. 

The sergeant had scoured his tin dishes in the 
river hank sand and was returning to the tent when 
he saw a horseman observing him from the main 
trail. The man stared a moment longer, then rode 
toward him. Soon, Seymour recognized him and 
wondered at such curiosity from a man of affairs. 

“You’re my first visitor, Brewster!” he called as 
the cordial freighter drew near. “Welcome to 
camp. If you’d been fifteen minutes earlier, I’d 
have fed you. Now, if you’re hungry, over there’s 
the grub box.” 

“So it’s really you?” The visitor’s response was 
oddly halting, as if he was finding it difficult to 
believe his eyes. 

“To my best knowledge and belief, I’m no one 
else.” 

Brewster laughed and swung into a chatting po- 




238 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


sition by hooking one leg over the horn of his sad¬ 
dle. “And here I was hot-footing into town to get 
you out of jail.” 

“Kind of you, but apparently unnecessary,” 
Seymour offered a laugh of his own. “Where did 
you get the idea I was in limbo?” 

The sergeant did not need to feign his look of 
mystification. That the news of an arrest that 
Hardley himself did not remember had traveled 
to the creeks to be heard by Brewster served only 
to deepen the puzzle. 

“Did Hardley mention jail to you?” he asked. 
“He didn’t to me, and I saw him just before I 
left town.” 

“It wasn’t Hardley—haven’t seen him since he 
left my room last evening. But Cato said Hard¬ 
ley had pinched you and locked you up. He de¬ 
clared he had helped in the capture and wais 
pleased with himself.” 

At mention of Cato, the sergeant was suddenly 
in the clear, although not so much as an eyelash 
flicker betrayed the fact. He recalled now the in¬ 
ordinately long arms of the man. Doubtless these 
had puckered the blanket around his midrift and 




THE CLOSED CREEK 


239 


beaten him into unconsciousness. The lovelorn old 
codger, fired with jealousy, must have been stalk¬ 
ing the widow’s place, mistaken him for a rival 
and acted under the dictates of his brandy-befud¬ 
dled brain. That he had forgotten to confide the 
fact of imprisonment to Hardley was evident; but 
then, he had neglected to lock the jail. How the 
ox driver had got possession of the key was a 
detail unexplained, but Seymour would never be 
sufficiently curious about that to inquire into it. 
To have been taken single-handed by Cato was not 
particularly flattering, even though the gnome was 
possessed of superhuman strength. 

“Wasn’t Cato hitting the hootch yesterday?” was 
all he asked of the driver’s employer. 

“He was that,” admitted Brewster, “and he had 
a hang-over this morning. But how he ever im¬ 
agined- Oh, well, there’s no harm done, long 

as it was only a drunken dream. I was afraid 
Hardley would lose another day getting after the 
Seymour murderers and I didn’t want to see you 
suffer from his foolishness. But you’ve picked a 
queer place to camp, strikes me. Didn’t you know 
that Glacier Creek is closed?” 





240 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


The sergeant had not heard this and was curious 
to know how any creek could be “closed.” 
Brewster told him. The genial old missionary, 
Shan O’Malley, had laid the foundation for the 
situation in the early days of the rush. With more 
foresight than many laymen, he had seen what was 
coming. To hold the Indians of his congregation, 
or whatever he called it, and to keep them from 
contact with the white “rushers” as far as possible, 
he had induced them to claim, stake and register 
every foot of bar and bench from the canon en¬ 
trance back to the glacier. To make a close corpo¬ 
ration of it, he and his niece Ruth had staked the 
two full claims between the canon gate and the 
Cheena. Glacier Creek had not proved a bonanza, 
but O’Malley did not seem to care; the laziest 
Siwash could pan out a living, and the old man was 
keeping his flock together. 

Then along came Bonnemort and Kluger, a 
shrewd pair from somewhere back in eastern Can¬ 
ada. They saw a chance of operating the Glacier 
Creek diggings on a large scale. The Bonnemort 
of the combination admitted to being a half-breed, 
and he knew how to handle the Siwashes. Before 




THE CLOSED CREEK 


241 


the missionary knew what was up, the pair had 
leased every Indian claim beyond the canon gate. 
Moreover—and Brewster was forced to smile ap¬ 
preciatively as he told it—they had hired the In¬ 
dians to work their own claims. When all was set, 
they posted a “No Trespass” sign and stationed an 
armed guard at the narrow entrance. When this 
sentry turned back the sky-pilot intent on visiting 
his flock, the whole district had learned of the coup. 

Brewster said he had been right friendly with 
Ruth Duperow and her uncle at that time. Because 
of their fears that the Siwashes were being robbed, 
he had brought Sam Hardley to investigate. The 
B. & K. outfit had produced their leases and the 
Indians denied that they were being worked against 
their will. As no established trail ran up the 
creek, which was a veritable cul-de-sac because of 
its glacier source, Hardley had decided that the 
leases were within their rights and that there wasn’t 
a thing to be done about it. The creek was still 
closed, and because there was only one entrance— 
through the narrow mouth of the canon, where one 
man could hold up a regiment—it was likely to 




242 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


remain so until the within-the-law operators took 
down the bars. 

“I lost out with the sky-pilot and Miss Duperow 
because I wouldn’t storm the gate,” Brewster con¬ 
cluded regretfully. “About that time appeared 
this Sergeant Seymour, then under cover as a min¬ 
ing expert. He fell hard for the girl, which is not 
against him, for there isn’t a finer in all B. C. than 
Miss Ruth. I don’t know what he thought of the 
monopoly or what he intended to do when he got 
into uniform. As you know, the stage robbers 
killed him before he got saddled up.” 

“What do you make of it yourself?” 

Brewster shrugged his broad shoulders. “I may 
be prejudiced. You see, while I lost my best girl, 
I landed my B. & K. packing contract. I’ll say 
they pay their bills. Hope you won’t think I was 
trying to horn into your game by criticizing your 
camp selection. But I thought you might not know 
how things stood on Glacier.” 

Seymour thanked him, then glanced into the 
river. “Maybe I like the looks of the Cheena,” he 
added. 

“Scouting for dredger people, eh?” Brewster 




THE CLOSED CREEK 


243 


made shrewd surmise. “I hear they’re cleaning 
up strong in the Klondike. The Cheena ought to 
pay rich for anyone with money enough to put in 
a hydraulic plant. Remember that Philip Brew¬ 
ster is in the freighter business in case you begin 
operations. Good luck to you and goodbye for 
the present.” 

The sergeant watched Brewster ride across the 
flat to the main trail; noted that he turned back 
toward the creeks. Evidently the freighter had 
been riding into Gold to effect, as he said, Sey¬ 
mour’s release. An obliging individual, Brewster, 
even if he had given his fat deputy friend foolish 
advice about holding back the Mounted. 

So Glacier was a closed creek. A guarded 
“gate” had been swung across its canon mouth. 
Upon what? Upon Bart Caswell’s something 
“richer than gold,” he strongly suspected. Per¬ 
haps upon the “sergeant’s” slayer as well. Sey¬ 
mour was part Irish; he enjoyed passing the im¬ 
passable—or trying to. 




CHAPTER XXII 


A FIGURE OF SPEECH 

Carrying an empty tin pail from his mess out¬ 
fit, to lend borrowing-color to his neighborly call, 
Seymour trudged openly to the mission. This 
proved to he a sizeable log structure without cross 
or belfry which served both as dwelling for the 
missionary and a place for the Indians to worship. 
It had been up several years, from the dead look 
of the logs. The outlook was upon Glacier Creek 
rather than upon the Cheena. A forest of scrubby 
cedar and fir skirted the back of it, while not far 
away was that misplaced rock spur which formed 
one flank of the closed canon. 

His coming was announced in chorus by several 
malamutes chained to individual dog houses in 
the front yard. The venerable sky-pilot himself 
was at the front door ready to admit him. 

“You are welcome, brother—more than wel¬ 
come,” was his greeting. “Your arrival relieves 
244 


A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


245 


my daughter of the necessity of riding to Gold to 
assure us that nothing has happened to you.” 

66 Your daughter- I thought I’d met your 

niece! Circumstances beyond my control made 

last night’s appointment-” 

Seymour’s excuses were interrupted by the sud¬ 
den entry, from what seemed to be the kitchen, of 
Moira, a radiant surprise in a blue gingham apron 
below the hem of which showed her riding boots, 
testimony that she, not the blond Ruth, had been 
about to ride to his rescue. 

“When-?” was all he was able to gasp as he 

reached out for both her hands. 

“Last night’s stage- To think that you- 

Oh! Ruth has told me all about how finely you’ve 
taken hold of the situation!” 

“And Miss Ruth—where is she?” he asked. 
“She’s had a hard blow in the death of a man 
she had come to trust. Isn’t it enough—glad 
enough that I’m here, Sergeant Scarlet? I know 
you must be hungry after that long ride from town. 

In a minute-and-a-half-” 

Seymour reassured her, telling of the precau¬ 
tion he had taken to cover his visit by establishing 










246 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


camp near by. He pointed to the bucket. ‘‘Any¬ 
one seeing me come here with this, surely must 
take me for a borrowing neighbor, don’t you think? 
Already I’ve been spotted as a scout for a gold¬ 
dredging outfit with designs on the Cheena.” 

“Then, brother, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll hand 
you over to Moira,” said the Missionary. “I’m 
engaged in a vital work—nothing less than the 
translation of the Epistles into Chinook. I try to 
leave all temporal affairs to my daughter and my 
niece for my time is short—my time is short. You 
will find her most competent and more fully in¬ 
formed in the details of this outrageous intrigue 
than I am myself. In this grievous time of tur¬ 
moil which has befallen us, I thank the good Lord 
every hour for the return of such a daughter.” 

“Father, dear!” she gently hushed him. 

While the girl was engaged in settling him at a 
table near a window and arranging his books and 
papers, Seymour glanced about the comfortable 
living room. Every stick of furniture, he per¬ 
ceived, was frontier made. The few wall decora¬ 
tions were Indian handiwork—rude carvings in 
wood, garishly painted; reed basketry of beautiful 




A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


247 


design; a bow and arrows, canoe paddles. The 
floor coverings were skins that had never been in 
the hands of a professional taxidermist. There 
was an air of home about the place never to be 
found in the quarters of the longest established po¬ 
lice detachments. In this instance, probably, it 
was the touch of Ruth, the grieving cousin, or of 
Moira herself before she had put into the Far 
North in behalf of her supposedly vagrant brother. 

He crossed to the fireplace in which cedar logs 
were in a crackling blaze. Its rock was native 
galena in which the brownish stains of iron pre¬ 
dominated, but so besprinkled was it with mineral 
facets as to look alive where the fire played upon 
it. On the mantel were a totem pole and several 
pieces of carved ivory but no trace of “Outside,” 
not even a phonograph. Either Moira and Ruth 
were satisfied with existence in the wild or did not 
wish to be reminded of civilization. 

When Moira rejoined him after having settled 
her father at his self-assigned task, Seymour was 
fingering idly several specimens of heavy, grayish 
mineral which lay at the end of the mantel. 

“Frog-gold, my father calls that stuff,” said the 




248 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


girl. “It’s the plague of our Glacier Creek plac¬ 
ers, cluttering up our sluices and utterly worthless 
except in rare instances, such as-” 

She ran her eyes over the specimens and picked 
out one that was shaped curiously like a human 
hand. In the gray palm was a small nugget of 
gold, worth possibly a dollar. 

“Take this one as a souvenir of your first visit 
to the mission,” she said, and held it out to him. 

He had been on the point of asking her for one 
of the curios, because of a possible connection with 
the case that had occurred to him, so accepted the 
gift gladly. 

“Do you know the real story of the closing of 
Glacier Creek, Moira?” he asked, the matter-in¬ 
hand always on his mind. 

“I heard it all last .night from father and from 
Ruth,” she assured him. “This pretended Mountie 
who has just been murdered made an inspection of 
the creek in father’s behalf because of his love for 
my cousin. It’s a trouble creek, I tell you. 

“This Bart Caswell made friends with a hired 
gunman that Bonnemort and Kluger had on guard 
and slipped into the gulch where the claims are lo- 





A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


249 


cated. He showed great skill in keeping under 
cover and was not discovered until the next after¬ 
noon, by which time he had seen more than enough. 

“His report,” Moira went on, “was worse than 
father had feared. The conscienceless scoundrels 
had made slaves of all our people, plying them 
with liquor and working them heartrending hours 
under the whip. Bart thought the slavers knew 
their days of oppression were numbered, and were 
trying to strip the claims of their treasure in the 
shortest possible time. Undoubtedly the guard at 
the gate was as much to keep the slaves in as the 
whites out. Isn’t that an intolerable state of af¬ 
fairs? Do you wonder that father is beside him¬ 
self with anxiety, realizing his impotence until 
Canada wakes up to what is going on?” 

There was no doubting her honest rage, or that 
it was unselfish, as neither her cousin’s claim nor 
her father’s was being plundered. 

“Did I understand you to say that Bart was dis¬ 
covered up the gulch?” Seymour asked. 

“Bonnemort himself discovered him slipping 
through the brush near one of their long sluice 
boxes,” Moira informed him. “He would have 




250 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


beaten Rart to death had not his partner happened 
along. Kluger, who evidently is the brains of the 
combination, didn’t want a white man murdered 
‘on the works,’ as he put it. They brought Bart 
to the gate and literally kicked him into the open, 
warning him that he’d have no second chance. If 
ever they caught him trying to spy on them again, 
they threatened to shoot him on sight.” 

Seymour recalled the widow’s version, un¬ 
doubtedly the true one concerning Bart’s motives 
and mental processes regarding the Glacier Greek 
plunderers. “Until that uniform fell into his 
hands, he did not see any way of getting the best 
of them,” Mrs. Caswell had told him. 

Bart’s plan from that point was easily deduced. 
Once in uniform, it had been necessary for him 
to “stall” in regard to the Tabor murder—to check¬ 
mate Hardley with any citizens’ investigation by 
pretending to make his own. He seemed to have 
found time, too, for a reassuring visit with Ruth 
Duperow and perhaps to advance whatever per¬ 
sonal game he was playing with the girl. 

Yesterday morning the imposter had set out for 
the guarded canon on Glacier Creek, counting on 





A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


251 


the magic of the Mounted uniform, which, for 
once, had failed to cast its wonted spell. Pos¬ 
sibly this failure was because the plunderers had 
recognized the counterfeit. But the sergeant was 
not ready to credit that explanation. He preferred 
to think that it pointed to the desperation of the 
gold strippers, who would not hesitate to add the 
murder of a non-commissioned officer to their other 
crimes. 

The sergeant was forced to admit to himself the 
neatness of Bart’s scheme as he now surmised it. 
Had the uniform “worked,” the fake sergeant 
would have taken the B. & K. clean-up, ostensibly 
to hold it until the courts adjudicated the Indians’ 
claims. Once the treasure was in his possession, 
he would have made off with it over the conve¬ 
niently near Alaskan border and escaped with it on 
some southbound steamer that touched at no 
British Columbian port. Just possibly, because of 
that gift of tongue with women of which Seymour 
already had seen evidence, Bart would have per¬ 
suaded Ruth Duperow to accompany him. 

‘Til give the Glacier diggings a look-over,” he 





252 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


said with a decision that was not as sudden as it 
sounded, and got to his feet. 

Seymour’s expression showed as little concern 
as though he proposed going to the door to glance 
at the weather prospects. He was not underrating 
the risks that would come with an attempt to work 
from the inside out; but he was ignoring them so 
far as any surface indication was concerned. 
From the scout he was determined to make, he had 
every hope of getting the needed direct evidence; 
at least, he would determine what was “richer 
than gold” that had led Bart Caswell to tempt fate 
once too often. 

“You’ll never get past the gate!” Moira cried in 
despair and possibly some disappointment that he 
had taken her own arrival so placidly. “Bonne- 
mort himself has taken charge of the guard there. 
He was there yesterday morning and yelled to 
Ruth: ‘Tell your friend a uniform makes a fine 
target!’ It was that renewed threat that sent her 
toward town with her too-late warning. This 
morning, since you had been delayed, I went over 
to the creek. He was there, but kept silent—even 




A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


253 


when I called him a murderer. I tell you, Ser¬ 
geant Scarlet, darling, the canon is closed!” 

Seymour smiled his appreciation of the care she 
was showing in his behalf. So she had dared call 
Bonnemort a murderer to his face! The wonder 
was she hadn’t drawn a bullet for herself instead 
of silence. 

“I’m figuring on coming out through the canon, 
Moira dear—sort of unlatching the gate from the 
inside. There must be another way in.” Sey¬ 
mour’s tone was confident, although the other way 
of which he spoke was yet to be found. 

“There is another way in!” 

This welcome declaration boomed upon their 
ears from the old missionary at his desk under 
the window. Evidently he had not been so ab¬ 
sorbed in his Biblical translation as they had 
thought him. Now he pushed back his chair and 
crossed to the fireplace. 

“I discovered this other way while exploring 
the spur last spring, just before this curse of gold 
fell upon us,” he explained. “Had I known what 
Bart was up to, I’d have shown him this secret way. 

I did not actually enter the gulch by it, not trusting 




254 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


muscles that are getting ragged with age, but you 
can, brother, if your head is level, your fingers 
and toes strong.” 

“Score one for the sky-pilot of Argonaut!” cried 
his daughter, throwing her arms around his neck 
and patting him on the back. “Since they’ve smit¬ 
ten us on every cheek we possess, it’s high time 
we smote them back.” 

In planning for the hazardous attempt imme¬ 
diately, Moira O’Malley’s insistence on going 
along proved a complication. Before the sergeant 
realized her trend, he had admitted knowing only 
a smattering of Chinook. The girl, it seemed, 
spoke the tongue of the provincial Indians flu¬ 
ently. 

“These Siwashes are by no means as dumb as 
they look,” she said. “They will know who left 
the diggings on this murder ride yesterday morn¬ 
ing. They’ll tell me and then you’ll know the man 
you’re after.” 

Seymour at once rejected her offer as rash be¬ 
yond reason. Her father, however, seemed pas¬ 
sive, perhaps silenced by his admiration for her 
courage. 




A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


255 


“Why, I’ll be safe enough with such an officer 
as you to protect me,” Moira declared. “Think 
what you’ve already done for me!” 

But her trustfulness did not appeal in this ex¬ 
tremity. Seymour insisted that such a piece of 
scouting was no work for a woman. She might 
cross-examine her Siwashes after he had cleared 
the creek of whites, but not before. In the end, 
therefore, there was a compromise, to the extent 
that Moira should come as far as the edge of the 
gulch—to see that her father got home safely. 

The sergeant departed from the mission openly, 
carrying his tin pail. He even hoped that the house 
was, as the girl feared, being watched through a 
glass from the canon’s mouth. At his camp, he 
made hurried preparations, pocketing a supply of 
“hard” rations and extra cartridges for his gun. 
Down in the meadow, he unpicketed both horses. 
They could be trusted to stay near the tent and, in 
case his return was delayed, they must not suffer 
from want of grass and water. Although the Rev. 
O’Malley had said nothing about need of a rope 
for his “other way in,” Seymour quickly spliced 
the two picket strings and coiled the length over 




256 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


his shoulder. Gaining cover of the timber, he 
made his way as rapidly as possible to the rear of 
the mission house where the O’Malleys awaited 
him. 

The spur proved a hard climb and the mission¬ 
ary needed help over several of the rougher 
places. But at length he brought them to a point 
where the sheer wall of the boxed-in gulch was 
many feet lower than the remainder. 

Even there, a dizzy drop intervened between the 
top and a narrow ledge that promised a path to 
timber line for one who was certain of foot. The 
old man pointed out certain crevices and projec¬ 
tions by which a daring climber might work his 
way down to the ledge; but the sergeant was glad 
he had brought his rope with which to simplify the 
start. 

The risk that anyone would catch sight of him 
as he lowered himself seemed slim, for the creek 
at this point was some distance away and a thick 
growth of fir lay between. At any rate, this was 
a risk to be taken; he must negotiate that ledge 
in daylight. 

“You’ll come out at the Indian burying ground,” 




A FIGURE OF SPEECH 


257 


said the missionary. “I’m sure it lies in front of 
this dip in the wall. Conceal yourself there for 
the night. The Siwashes will be anywhere else 
after darkness falls.” 

With this sage advice, the veteran missionary 
started back over the trail, his mind already 
speeding to other matters now that he had done all 
he might in the one at hand. 

For just a moment the lovers who had been 
through so many trying experiences enjoyed their 
first interval alone since the Montreal parting. 
This was more mental than physical in view of 
the stress of the situation. 

“You’ve explained to Ruth?” Seymour asked 
presently. 

“In part—that you’re the real Russell Seymour. 
She still thinks that this Bart was an officer but us¬ 
ing your name for some official reason. I haven’t 
told father about Oliver yet, and—should I tell 
him?” 

As often, Seymour’s expression was an enigma 
to her. 

“Not yet,” he said finally. “It just may take 
some of the sting away if you can present him with 




258 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


a son-in-law in partial place of his first-born who 
cannot be returned.” 

“You think, Russell—oh, do you think you are 
on the track-” 

“I’ll get him—Karmack—somewhere,” he as¬ 
sured her. 

Having knotted his rope at fifteen-inch inter¬ 
vals, the sergeant made one end fast to a sturdy 
young cedar which grew near the edge and cast the 
loose end into the canon. As nearly as he could 
determine by peering over, the hemp reached al¬ 
most, if not quite, to the ledge. 

“How soon shall we look for your return?” 
Moira asked a bit hysterically when all was ready. 

“When I come out through the canon gate.” He 
hoped his laugh was reassuring. 





CHAPTER XXIII 


WHEN MORNING CAME 

The rope proved long enough but there was no 
overhang. And the ledge was a path down the 
face of the cliff, but so fragmentary that many 
times the hold of his fingers forced into crevices 
alone made it passable. At the very start, an ap¬ 
parently solid piece broke off under his weight and 
almost cast him into the depths. After that les¬ 
son, which came so near to being his last, he sidled 
along the wall so that his toes might set as near the 
face of it as possible. 

Fifty feet from the bottom of the gulch the ledge 
ended. He was forced to stake all on a hazardous 
leap into the top of the nearest fir tree. While the 
upper branches gave under his hundred and eighty 
pounds and countless needles pricked him, his fall 
was broken and eventually stayed by the stouter 
limbs below. 

In the gathering dusk he gained the burial 

259 


260 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


ground of which O’Malley had spoken. Familiar 
as he was with the native customs of the Northland, 
he felt thankful, when this settlement of the dead 
loomed up in the gloom, that he had been prepared 
for the spectral effect. Built on stilts above each 
grave were huts of bizarre woodwork. In each, he 
knew, were housed the particular personal treas¬ 
ures of some departed brave, but nothing of in¬ 
trinsic worth. 

Seymour was not superstitious and, much as he 
might have preferred other habitation for the night, 
he did not hesitate to borrow a lodging here. Se¬ 
lecting the most commodious of the “hatches,” he 
climbed under its roof. Although this particular 
8 x 10 boot-box boasted both a spire and a dome 
it was open on one side, presumably for the pur¬ 
pose of exhibiting a black bottle, an alarm clock 
from which the works had been removed, and other 
heirlooms of some Siwash gone to happier hunting 
grounds. It offered a measure of protection, how¬ 
ever, against the chill that came with darkness. As 
he had no blanket and dared not light a fire, this 
“spook roost,” as he thought of it, was more than 
welcome. 




WHEN MORNING CAME 


261 


A short distance up the creek from his refuge 
and on the opposite bank lay an Indian camp of 
four or five families, to judge by the number of 
supper fires. He watched the natives through their 
meal, the while munching a tasteless emergency 
ration that was guaranteed to be rich in calories. 

The Indian camp proved unusually quiet. He 
had heard Eskimo hunting parties make far more 
of a powwow around their night fires of blubber. 
There was no ribald song or laughter, no fighting, 
which were to be expected if the despoilers were 
supplying the natives with liquor, as Moira had 
told the sergeant. 

The yelping of many hungry dogs warned him 
of the folly of trying to scout the camp under 
cover of darkness. He decided to stay where he 
was and to begin his explorations in the morning 
when work was under way. Gradually, with the 
fires, the noise of the camp died out, as if the 
sleeping mats were superattractive to the natives 
after a hard day’s work on the placers. 

Politics made strange bedfellows, Seymour had 
heard. Well, he stood ready to testify that police 
duty in the Argonaut Valley brought one to strange 




262 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


beds, too. His first night in a jail bunk; his second 
in a Siwash mausoleum! And on both occasions, 
nothing softer than his hat for a pillow! 

But the murmur of the rushing creek and the 
soughing of the firs invited sleep; he yielded to the 
lullaby. 

A crash like thunder awoke him at one time in 
the night, but he found the sky clear on looking 
out. Not until a second report came could he lo¬ 
cate the source—the glacier in which the creek had 
its source. The green monster was sloughing off 
its ice. There came variations in the alarm when¬ 
ever new crevasses were split with a terrific, smash¬ 
ing noise. 

The worst start of the night, however, came in 
a sense of falling and landing with a thump that 
shook every bone in his body. That he had fallen 
and landed, not dreamed the sensations, became 
clear when he found himself on the ground and 
looking up at the hut. He had rolled out of 
“bed.” 

Seymour was up the next morning with the 
klootchmen , and they arose with the sun. Before 
the Indian camp was thoroughly awake, he had 




WHEN MORNING CAME 


263 


slipped out of the burying ground and gained the 
cover of the timber fringe along the south wall of 
the gulch. 

From what he could see now of the formation, 
he determined that Glacier Creek was not as in¬ 
accessible as reputed. There were other possible 
entrances, at least one of which appeared less haz¬ 
ardous than that by which he had come. In the 
past, the natural entrance to the canon had always 
been open and no one had ever found it necessary 
to work out another. 

Refreshing himself at a spring upon which he 
had stumbled, he turned first to an investigation of 
the canon a quarter of a mile below. So nearly 
did the wings of the rocky spur meet that there was 
scarcely a hundred feet between walls at the nar¬ 
rowest point. Through this gap. Glacier Creek 
poured without hindrance. Along the opposite 
wall ran a wagon-width trail. 

At a point about halfway through the canon 
stood two tents, the canvas of which still was white. 
Doubtless this was the camp of the guards and, 
perhaps, that of the promoters of the steal. Just 
now he was satisfied with placing this camp; 




264 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


close investigation could wait until he learned what 
“richer than gold” was being gleaned up the 
gulch. 

Slowly he worked up the stream, keeping back 
from the bank and well screened by the brush. 
Breakfast was over at the camp near which he had 
spent the night. Twenty Indians, men and women, 
were at work picking and shoveling in a near-by 
bench and wheeling loaded barrows to a long 
wooden sluice box into which a small stream of 
water had been diverted. The onlooker was puz¬ 
zled that they were working with such seeming 
good-will. In fact, he had never seen natives so 
industrious. Nowhere was any whip-armed master 
visible. 

A blast from upstream did not concern him 
greatly, as he thought the glacier was cutting day¬ 
light capers. But when other reverberations 
crashed out at regular intervals, he felt certain 
that dynamite was being exploded. This would 
explain why the Siwashes were able to work so 
freely in the frozen gravel and gave color to Bart’s 
report that the claims were being “stripped.” 

Exercising the utmost caution, he worked his 




WHEN MORNING CAME 


265 

way eastward until he crouched opposite an exag¬ 
gerated “ant hill” of activity, undoubtedly the 
scene of major operations. There were three 
sluices here, near a bench that had been shattered 
by a recent explosion. No crew of white miners 
could have shown greater industry or fewer lost 
motions than the natives at work there. And as 
below, he saw no sign of a white oppressor. 

Then, from a tent near the Indian encampment, 
there emerged a brawny man who answered the 
O’Malleys’ description of Bonnemort, he who 
nearly had done for Bart. Six feet two or three 
and built from the soles up, he stood looking over 
the busy scene. 

In a flash, Seymour recognized the red-headed 
man who had insisted on sending wine to the young 
Mounties in that Montreal cabaret. Something of 
a change of scene, this; but not so surprising in 
Canada—land of far-flung opportunities. 

The sergeant surmised this to be the alleged 
breed’s first appearance of the morning. Confir¬ 
mation came with the appearance of a young 
squaw bearing a tray of breakfast which she spread 
on a rough table before the tent. Indeed, this 




266 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


breed must have a “way” with the Siwashes, 
thought the sergeant, to command from them such 
competent service. From his reserved seat in the 
brush, he envied him the cup of steaming coffee 
and, later, the cigar which the autocrat of the 
wild lighted. This last was particularly tanta¬ 
lizing to one whose pipe must perforce remain 
cold. 

Presently came a small man on horseback, all- 
white, puttee-clad, and, on reasonable supposition, 
one Kluger by name. Dismounted, the new ar¬ 
rival, reputed to be the “brains of the outfit,” did 
not come to his partner’s shoulder; but from the 
rapidity of his movements, Seymour judged that 
his small frame concealed a dynamo of energy. 
The two conferred a moment, then started toward 
the sluice box. 

Peering from behind the bushes, Seymour felt 
as though he were watching some well-lighted 
motion picture. He saw Bonnemort call a couple 
of Siwashes to them; but no word of their conver¬ 
sations reached him. 

For an hour he watched them as they directed 
the morning clean-up of the treasure gathered on 




WHEN MORNING CAME 


267 


the riffles—cross cleats of wood on the bottom 
of the sluice troughs—from the pay dirt washed 
the previous day. One departure from the regular 
placer practice stood out. The gleaners carried 
two sacks, one twice the size of the other. At 
every riffle, contributions were made to each. 

If this was a division of the yield between the 
managing sharpers and working owners, it seemed 
unnecessarily clumsy. Why did it need to be done 
on the dump in such piecemeal fashion? Both 
parties to the proceeding seemed satisfied, how¬ 
ever. There was no haggling, not even discussion 
over the division, if such it really was. 

In the end, the two whites, between them, carried 
the larger and heavier sack to Bonnemort’s tent, 
while the two Indians who had made the cleaning 
carried off the smaller bag to one of their wickiups. 

After spending several minutes within the tent, 
behind closed flaps, the partners came out and 
started down-stream, Bonnemort walking with long 
strides beside the mounted Kluger. To the ser¬ 
geant, the supposition seemed reasonable that they 
were bound for a clean-up at the lower diggings 
and that, for a time, the upper creek would be 




268 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


free of whites. He decided upon a bold stroke, the 
success of which would depend upon how far the 
Siwashes had been taken into confidence. 

Going down the creek bank in the brush until he 
was out of sight of the camp, he gained the trail 
and started back. He walked as openly as though 
he belonged to the outfit; stopped at several points 
to look critically at the work being done, then 
strode on with a nod or grunt of approval. None 
challenged his advance; not even a look questioned 
him. He entered the tent as though he had every 
right to do so, as, indeed, he had, although it was 
a right of a different sort than any who observed 
him might have imagined. 

As the canvas flaps fell behind him, he made a 
rapid survey of the interior—two folding cots with 
bedding, camp stools, a table built of empty dyna¬ 
mite boxes with the labels of the “Kingdom Come” 
brand much in evidence, and an improvised clothes 
horse hung with an assortment of masculine ap¬ 
parel. His particular interest settled on what 
looked like a carpenter’s tool chest, but which, for 
want of any likelier container, he took to be the 




WHEN MORNING CAME 


269 


camp’s treasury box. Without much hope,* he 
stooped and tried the lid. It was locked. 

In the act of kneeling to examine this, the tent 
was suffused in sunlight from the opening of a 
flap. He straightened and turned as a young 
squaw entered, her head bound in a bright-colored 
bandanna. Possibly she was the fastidious Bonne- 
mort’s chambermaid, he thought, come to make 
the bed. His heart was pounding. An alarm 
would ruin all. 

“Kla-how-yah!” she grunted the usual Chinook 
greeting, but evinced no surprise at finding him 
in the tent. 

“Don’t mind me,” he managed to reply with a 
well assumed assurance, hoping she at least could 
understand English, even though she did not 
speak it. 

But she spoke it, and to his utter consternation. 
“Right good make-up if it fools a Mountie,” she 
said with a lilting laugh that was controlled not 
to carry beyond the canvas. “How do you like 
me as a klootch?” 

“Moira!” he whispered. 

“None other. Sergeant Scarlet.” 




CHAPTER XXIV 


TENT-TOLD TALES 

Seymour stood and stared at the young woman, 
marveling at her complete transformation. A 
right good make-up, she had called it. He could 
truthfully make the statement stronger. When 
her eyes were hidden and her voice stilled, all 
trace of his beloved was gone. She looked as 
Siwash as though she had been born on the trail 
of a squaw mother and had passed her babyhood 
strapped to a board. 

The fine lines of her slim young figure were 
swathed in rags after the fashion of the North 
Coast native women. Waist line was nil, her 
makeshift skirt seemed to drop from her shoulders. 
For a one-piece garment, it certainly was of pieces, 
patched and pinned and tied together. He 
doubted if she could step out of it without taking 
it apart. 

To her complexion she had done something to 
270 


TENT-TOLD TALES 


271 


give it a rich copper tinge. The hands were 
stained to match. Her lips had been thickened 
with paint lines and over her patrician nose ran a 
series of blue lines, a counterfeit of the tattooing 
with which the Argonaut native women disfigure 
themselves. A finger tied up in a soiled rag added 
the last touch of verisimilitude. 

Recovering from his first shock, Seymour re¬ 
minded himself of their situation. “Didn’t I make 
it plain yesterday that your coming here was 
beyond all reason?” he demanded almost petu¬ 
lantly. 

“Not so far beyond as myself,” she murmured 
rebelliously. “I’m here, am I not? And you’ll 
find me more reasonable for having had my own 
way.” 

She intended following him from the first, she 
admitted, and for that reason she had watched 
his descent from the top of the cliff, marking the 
difficulties he had overcome. After helping her 
father back to the mission, she had given her eve¬ 
ning to make-up and costume. She left home 
before daybreak. 

“Do you mean to say you tip-toed that ledge 




272 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


and made the jump into the fir tree?” he asked in¬ 
credulously. 

She shook her head, flashing him a smile. “I 
profited by watching you. I came all the way 
down by rope, bringing an extra coil, ready knot¬ 
ted, from the mission and tying it to the end of 
yours.” 

“But you won’t be able to fool the squaws!” he 
observed, again looking troubled. 

“Haven’t tried. They think I slipped in to see 
how they are faring and togged out as one of them 
that the whites would not suspect my visit. They 
seem pleased—perhaps flattered—and will keep 
my secret.” 

Seymour did not relish the situation created by 
her persistence. The girl’s presence was a grave 
complication. It handicapped him just when his 
investigation was advancing with unexpected 
smoothness. But now that she was in, his duty 
was to get her out safely. 

“And how are your Indian wards faring?” he 
asked, by way of gaining time to figure out the 
safest, most expeditious exit for her. 

“They puzzle me for they have no complaint,” 




TENT-TOLD TALES 


27a 


she answered. “Either conditions have changed 
or that imposter was sadly misled in his obser¬ 
vations. Actually, the Indians seem to look upon 
Bonnemort and Kluger as benefactors. ‘Hiyu 
skookum Boston men,’ they call the rascals.” 

“B. & K. are taking the bulk of the clean-up,” 
Seymour told her. “I watched the divvy when 
they stripped the sluices out front this morning.” 

“But that doesn’t seem possible,” Moira pro¬ 
tested. “I hear from two of my most trusted 
klootchmen that the Indians are given all the gold.” 

Seymour seemed not to have heard. He was 
crossing to the front of the wall tent where, be¬ 
neath the table, he had sighted a sack exactly like 
the treasure-weighted one he had seen the partners 
carry from the creek. But if this was the same, 
it had been emptied. 

“All the gold, I said,” repeated the girl, im¬ 
patient at his seeming lack of attention to her as¬ 
tonishing report. “What do you make of that. 
Sergeant Scarlet?” 

“I’ll say that is right kind and unbelievably 
of B. & K. and that a right lively sur- 


generous 





274 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


prise is awaiting my Irisher when I get her out of 
jeopardy.” 

The sergeant had upturned the sack and was 
shaking it. A single jagged lump, evidently held 
in the fabric when the sack had been dumped, 
thudded to the ground. Both leaned over to exam¬ 
ine it. The girl straightened first. 

“More of that old frog-gold,” she said with 
another low, aggravating laugh. 

Seymour picked up the specimen. It was of the 
same grayish, metallic substance as the hand¬ 
shaped piece which Moira had given him at the 
mission. This one, however, held no yellow offer¬ 
ing. 

“Richer than gold!” In thought, Seymour mur¬ 
mured Bart’s exclamation of promise to Mrs. 
Caswell. 

He believed that at last he knew the answer to 
one part of the Glacier Creek riddle. But he said 
nothing to the girl about his hopes as he pocketed 
the fragment. 

“You said the Siwashes would tell you which 
of the two men rode away from the gulch, the 




TENT-TOLD TALES 


27S 


morning of the murder,” he reminded her. “Did 
they?” 

“That’s another peculiar thing,” she replied, 
lines of perplexity wrinkling her stained brow. 
“My klootchmen friends insist that both Kluger 
and Bonnemort were here as usual all that morn¬ 
ing. They made hiyu clean-up—gathered much 
gold—that Thursday morning and are positive they 
are not mistaken about the kind white men. The 
Indians haven’t heard that Bart was murdered; 
they still are chuckling at the way he was run out 
of the gulch.” 

“That would seem to leave us cold—as cold as 
we are on the trail of that scoundrel Karmack, 
wouldn’t it?” 

Not a flicker did the girl show to indicate that 
she had hope of hearing something in that particu¬ 
lar get-your-man direction. 

But within the tent Seymour saw something else 
to convince him that the search for Bart’s slayer 
was exceedingly “warm.” In the presence of this 
second inanimate witness, he was more anxious 
than ever to get the girl safely out of the gulch— 
before the fireworks. 




276 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“Fm nearly through in here,” he went on. 
“Have you planned how you will get yourself 
out?” 

“I can go back the way I came, I suppose,” she 
answered with a pout that was not as effective as 
it would have been had she been naturally clad. 
“But I thought you were going to open the canon 
gate—from the inside out?” 

“Even so, I can’t have you within range when I 
—when I pick the lock.” 

“You mean—you mean there may be some 
shooting?” she demanded with suppressed excite¬ 
ment. 

He did not like the gleam of hope that seemed 
to shine in her eyes. “You’ve done your part, 
Moira—more than any other woman would have 
dared to do. I wonder if I can trust you to wait 
for me in that graveyard down the creek?” 

“To sit and idly wait when I might have a hand 
in the excitement!” she moaned. “Being a woman 
is an awful handicap, Sergeant Scarlet.” 

“That will be the helping part in this crime 
clean-up,” he assured her, “to sit and wait. And 
if I do not come for you, you are to make your 




TENT-TOLD TALES 


277 


own way back to the mission and wait some more 
until other Mounties arrive to settle the score. 
You’ve done enough; leave the rest to me.” 

Moira protested that she had accomplished 
nothing but the ruin of their theories. Couldn’t 
she do something constructive? 

“We are done with theories and it’s time I dem¬ 
onstrate some facts,” said the sergeant in a con¬ 
vincing tone. “I feel certain I can promise you 
the arrest of Bart’s slayer if you’ll go at once to 
the hide-out I suggested.” 

“But the klootchmen said-” 

“Squaw talk—forget it.” He was growing im¬ 
patient. “Likely they don’t know one day from 
another. Any moment Bonnemort may return. 
Don’t risk his seeing you. Please go while there 
is time!” He turned to the tent front and held 
back one of its flaps. 

“Moira unwelcome—a new sensation!” she mur¬ 
mured disappointedly, then shuffled out of the tent 
with the flat-footed walk of an Argonaut squaw. 

The sergeant watched her a moment. How 
brave, how resourceful she was! Then he turned 





278 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


and focused his gaze on an overturned boot that 
lay near the improvised clothes horse. 

This was a right boot, according to the sole of 
it. Staring at him from the outer edge of that sole 
was a peculiar plate, presumably to counteract the 
wear of some foot lameness or a peculiarity of 
gait. As plainly as if it had been articulate, this 
told him; “The man who wears me killed Bart 
Caswell!” 




CHAPTER XXV 


CLUTCH OF THE BREED 

Making her way down Glacier Creek, giving no 
attention to the working Siwashes and receiving 
none from them, Moira O’Malley wondered what 
discovery this enigma of the Mounted had held 
hack from her. She did not resent particularly his 
lack of confidence, feeling that she had not earned 
it. That he seemed to disbelieve what the klootch- 
men had told her of the continued presence of the 
white and near-white spoilers at once troubled and 
gratified her. She hated to think that the Indian 
women would mislead her; but she did want the 
slayer of her cousin’s sweetheart captured and 
punished. Hope of that seemed built on the 
Thursday morning absence of either Kluger or his 
partner. 

At the start of this requested exit, the girl did 
not hurry, but ambled along squaw fashion. Once 

across the creek and out of sight of the upper dig- 
279 


280 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


gings, she meant to take to the brush. The Glacier 
natives would see her no more until Seymour 
came for her. That he would come for her—that 
he would be able to come for her, she did not 
doubt. From the moment she had seen him stride 
into the tent of Bonnemort as if he owned it, she 
had felt certain of his ultimate success. 

She reached the creek and was about to climb 
to the foot log when she heard some one start 
across it from the other side. Raising the eyes 
which she had held downcast throughout the walk 
from the tent, she saw, with a tremor of alarm, 
that Bonnemort had beaten her to the improvised 
bridge. She sidled away from the log’s end and 
seemed intent on watching the stream. Of course, 
the up-risen breed would be above noticing a squaw 
drudge, but she preferred to take no unnecessary 
chances. 

With eyes steadily averted, she waited. The 
heavy steps drew nearer as the big man set his 
feet on the flattened surface. Then suddenly, they 
ceased. He had halted at the end of the log. 

‘‘Look up here, you klootch!” 

The tone was that of a request, but it brought to 




CLUTCH OF THE BREED 


281 


the girl a sudden chill of terror. She dared not 
look up, yet scarcely dared she refuse. 

Evidently patience with a squaw was not held 
a virtue by the master. “Sulky, eh?” he grum¬ 
bled and sprang down from the log to stand di¬ 
rectly in front of her. Reaching out, he took her 
chin between thumb and forefinger and tilted it 
until her stained face looked up into his. 

“A new one, ain’t you?” he asked. “Thought 
I hadn’t seen you before, princess.” 

' A look came into his dark eyes that fright¬ 
ened her more. Not daring to utter protest for 
fear her Chinook would betray her, she cuffed at 
the hand which held her and broke his hold. 
Bonnemort’s chuckle sounded more ominous to 
her than an imprecation. 

“A Siwash klootch with spirit—and a beauty 
to boot!” he exclaimed. “There is something 
new under the sun. Your light’s been hidden long 
enough, young wildcat. Take a stroll up to my 
tent and we’ll talk it over.” 

His huge hand closed upon her shoulder with 
a firm grasp, but without undue violence. When 
he started back to camp, she stepped, perforce, at 




282 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


his side. Although tall for a woman, the red- 
haired breed was head and shoulders above her, 
and she recognized a captor that could only be 
circumvented by guile. 

He tried her out with several impertinent ques¬ 
tions. Was she married? What would she take 
for a kiss? Did she like white men, the big bear 
kind? 

He seemed to disown the Indian blood that was 
reputed to flow in his veins. Evidently he spoke 
little Chinook, for he complained at her refusal 
to understand English. 

As they strolled slowly along, Moira wasted 
no thought on self-censure. Seymour had been 
right—her exploit was absolutely wild. Escape 
she must, but if humanly possible by her own 
wit, without involving the Mountie or even dis¬ 
turbing him in his investigation. A plan flashed 
into her mind and she hastened to perfect it. 

With just the reluctance she thought her role 
required, she accompanied him to the placers. The 
Siwash men who looked up from their mining 
grinned at her or turned stolidly away. It was 
nothing to them that this skookum Boston chief 




CLUTCH OF THE BREED 


283 


saw fit to pay attention to one of their women. 
No hope of help lay in that quarter. 

When she reached that section of the placer 
where the two squaws to whom she had disclosed 
herself earlier in the morning were working a 
sluice, she began to struggle, hoping they would 
come to her rescue without disclosing her iden¬ 
tity. But with her first jerk, Bonnemort’s fingers 
tightened like a vise, as though he had been ex¬ 
pecting some such move. She continued to strug¬ 
gle. 

Fear that Seymour had gone into ambush 
within the tent and would come to her aid, to the 
upsetting of all his plans, kept her from crying 
out for help. One of the squaws did throw down 
her shovel and start toward her, but the other 
called her back. They whispered a moment, then 
turned their backs and resumed their toil. 

Even the realization that her Indian friends, 
hardened by the sorcery of too much gold, had 
failed her, did not lift her voice. At the head 
of the creek, she glimpsed the glacier imbedded 
in the mountainside like a gigantic prism, its in¬ 
numerable facets reflecting the sunlight in all the 




284 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


colors of the rainbow. On either side lay a fringe 
of brush and timber. All these invited her, of¬ 
fering sanctuary from a fate that promised to 
he worse than death. But first, before she could 
flee to the hope of escape they held out, she must 
break the clutch of Bonnemort, the half-breed. 

As she twisted and squirmed, her nails marked 
his face with furrowing scratches; but the smart 
of these seemed only to inflame him the more. As 
penalty, he demanded a kiss then and there where 
all her tribe could see. In the struggle to en¬ 
force his low-voiced decree, the bandanna that 
bound Moira’s head fell to the ground. Her mar¬ 
velous hair was revealed. 

Both hands seized her and held her off, as help¬ 
less in his clutch as though she had been a child. 
For a moment his eyes enjoyed the oddly masked 
beauty of her. But soon, with comprehension, 
there entered a new light—that of recognition. 

“So!” he muttered, baring his teeth as an an¬ 
gry beast bares its fangs. Transferring his hold 
to her streaming hair, Bonnemort flung the girl 
from her feet and started to drag her toward the 
tent. 




CLUTCH OF THE BREED 


285 


At last, all other hope gone, Moira O’Malley 
screamed for help—the help of her Mountie. The 
green old glacier broadcasted her distress, rever¬ 
berating her shrieks until the gulch rang with 
them. 

Within Bonnemort’s tent “Scarlet” Seymour 
knelt before a chest, the lock of which he had just 
succeeded in breaking. He was staring with di¬ 
lated eyes upon the real wealth of the Glacier 
Creek placers—truly richer than gold. 

As he reached out his fingers to run them 
through the heaping gray wealth, a scream sound¬ 
ed. It might have been the cry of a buzzard soar¬ 
ing in the blue above the camp. 

But the next moment the shriek took definite 
form as a human’s cry for help. Then came the 
shrill of his name—a long-drawn “Russell!” 

In a flash he comprehended. Moira had been 
discovered and had fallen into the hands of the 
despoilers. Without closing the lid of the treas¬ 
ure chest, he sprang to his feet and lunged out 
of the tent. A hundred yards down the path, he 
saw the breed and the girl in desperate struggle. 




286 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


Toward the scene of the unequal combat hastened 
a score of Argonaut natives. 

Seymour charged down the incline. “Coming, 
Moira!” he shouted. 

The breed heard and flung his intended vic¬ 
tim from him to the rocks. One glance at the 
oncoming figure enlightened him. “Wolves run 
in pairs!” he exclaimed. “And die together!” 

Moira saw him draw a revolver. Had he fired 
from the hip, her opportunity never would have 
come. Rut Bonnemort, confident in the distance 
that still separated him from the unknown res¬ 
cuer, paused to take aim. The girl’s fingers had 
closed around a rock. With all her might she 
hurled it at his head. 

Her aim was poor, but its faultiness proved 
fortunate. The missile struck Bonnemort’s wrist 
as his finger pressed the trigger. The bullet went 
wild. The gun was knocked from his hand and 
was thrown, by some muscular freak, within Moi¬ 
ra’s reach. 

For a second, Bonnemort stood nursing his in¬ 
jured wrist; then, with a snarled curse, he sprang 
to recover his weapon. But Seymour, at the end 




CLUTCH OF THE BREED 


287 


of his rush, crowded him off; the girl seized the 
gun and scrambled to her feet. 

She could not understand why the sergeant did 
not draw and declare himself. As the enemy 
already had fired, he was no longer under re¬ 
straint of that Quixotic slogan. 

Bonnemort, too, looked puzzled, but evidently 
took heart from his foe’s restraint, for he ad¬ 
vanced threateningly. Fearing that Seymour 
would be no match in a rough-and-tumble, Moira 
tried to press the miner’s gun upon him, but the 
sergeant waved her back. 

“Hold off the Siwashes,” he demanded. “This 
brute has a beating coming to him.” 

Bonnemort advanced with a chortle of joy, de¬ 
lighted that luck favored him with the respite 
of physical combat. So many things could hap¬ 
pen in a battle of fists. The man-to-man struggle 
was on. 

After his initial rush, which the sergeant clev¬ 
erly side-stepped, the breed’s main idea seemed 
to be to throw his powerful arms about his op¬ 
ponent. Except for occasional swings, which 
would have knocked Seymour out had they found 




288 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


their mark, his efforts were directed to this end. 

The sergeant had his Armistice detail to thank 
for his ability to evade. The Eskimo of the Arc¬ 
tic foreshore is above average height, large mus¬ 
cled and trained by occasional necessity to bat¬ 
tle with Polar bears. When boxing matches were 
put on at the detachment, in lieu of other diver¬ 
sion, Seymour had acted as instructor. His great¬ 
est difficulty had been to break his pupils of 
“hugging” and to teach them that a punch was 
more effective than a clinch any day or where. 
As a result, he was not only trained to the min¬ 
ute, but highly practiced in slipping out of 
clinches. 

From the first, Bonnemort fought like the Es¬ 
kimo, trying again and again for a crushing em¬ 
brace. With each vain effort, Seymour exacted 
punishment with jabs and cuts to the face. Never 
was he caught by the other’s powerful arms. 

For the alleged half-breed, the contest was soon 
sanguinary. His eyes and lips suffered and his 
nose became grotesque. On the other hand, 
Seymour was practically unmarked except for a 
lump on his forehead and a splotch on his 




CLUTCH OF THE BREED 


289 


cheek where Bonnemort’s fist had touched him. 

Klootchmen and braves had come from all parts 
of the diggings and stood in an irregular circle, 
staring in open-eyed wonder at the battle. Moira 
was having an easy task keeping them back, al¬ 
though she still held the gun ready. No partisan 
spirit developed. If anything, their grunts at 
clinches evaded and blows sent home favored the 
strange, more compact fighter. The sergeant was 
unknown to them, but the fact that the mission girl 
sponsored him with gun point was enough for 
them. 

Bonnemort’s wind was first to fail him and for 
an untimed round or two, Seymour played for him 
with hard punches to the body at every oppor¬ 
tunity. It became clear that the spoiler’s bulk 
was more “beef” than muscle. He was becom¬ 
ing a spectacle. His rushes lost their force; his 
swings grew hopelessly wild; his guard, never ef¬ 
fective, broke down entirely. 

“Punishment enough for manhandling you?” 
Seymour asked Moira, as the whirligig of battle 
brought him facing her. 

“Yes—yes, he’s paid!” she cried. 





290 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


The sergeant waded in then, regardless of the 
embrace he no longer feared. He beat Bonne- 
mort to his knees. No coup de grace was neces¬ 
sary, as the overgrown miner was blubbering for 
mercy. The Siwash gallery was beginning to 
grumble that none was delivered when they saw the 
victor produce a pair of handcuffs and snap them 
on the defeated one’s wrists. Bonnemort seemed 
too dazed to notice the official trend in the situa¬ 
tion, until— 

“I arrest you, Harry Karmack, in the name of 
the King for the murder of Oliver O’Malley, at 
Armistice, Northwest Territories.” 

Stunned by the surprise of his capture, turned 
white by the shock of the unexpected charge, the 
former factor stared about him wildly. 

As for Moira O’Malley, the double surprise was 
almost too much. Fright had prevented her rec¬ 
ognition of the familiar features of her Northern 
suitor now that his hair was turned to red; and 
all through the hunt, no hint had come to her 
from the close-lipped sleuth of the open places 
that the man he had sworn to “get” had raised 
his hand against her brother. 




CHAPTER XXVI 


BOOT AND BOOTY 

“You’d best behave, Karmack.” Seymour ac¬ 
cented the name of surprise that the girl might 
become convinced that their hunt was really done. 
“Your dyed pate don’t fool me and I’m no longer 
bound by our slogan of ‘never fire first.’ You 
took a couple of first shots up in the Arctic, re¬ 
member, and have just tried another here. One 
false move and you get yours.” 

Karmack stood very still. “What do you mean 
by that murder talk, Seymour?” he asked after 
a moment in which, evidently, he realized the 
folly of further denial of identity. “I may have 
squeezed a little from the grasping old Arctic to 
give me a start in British Columbia, but I swear 
I had nothing to do with the strangling of young 
O’Malley.” 

Moira still seemed puzzled. “I thought— 
Didn’t the jury say that Avic, the Eskimo—” She 

could not finish for emotion. 

291 


292 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“It takes two men to use the Ugiuk-line effec¬ 
tively,” Seymour explained to the girl. “I know, 
for I’ve had one around my own neck and barely 
broke out of the clutch. This fiend hired Avic 
to help him put your brother away—hired him 
with promise of a trip Outside to be tried for 
murder. Can you imagine! Now it will be ex- 
Factor Karmack who takes the trip—Inside.” 

Karmack moved restlessly, with the result of 
tightening the sergeant’s grip. “But man, what 
motive could I possibly have had?” he begged 
nervously. “What motive?” 

“From some outside source you learned that 
O’Malley had been sent to Armistice to inves¬ 
tigate you and you knew that, despite your best 
efforts, he had succeeded in getting the goods. 
What you didn’t know was that already he had 
sent out his report. I’ve been almost sure of 
your guilt ever since I learned that those black 
and silver fox pelts came from your old com¬ 
pany’s store room, two of the lot you held out 
on your employers.” 

Seymour turned to Moira. “Would you mind, 
dear, telling those Siwashes to get back to work? 




BOOT AND BOOTY 


293 


Please convince them who I am and that I’ve taken 
charge in the king’s name. That always goes 
strong with Indians. Make them understand that 
none of them is to leave the diggings.” 

Moira seemed to shake herself together from 
this blow he had delivered with all possible mercy. 
“I don’t exactly understand, friend, but I thank 
you.” She stepped into the circle of wondering 
natives and repeated his orders in Chinook. 

“But he wears no uniform,” objected one in 
English. 

“He needs no scarlet tunic,” the girl replied. 
“He is the law." This also she repeated in their 
jargon of gutturals. 

On order, Karmack led the way to the tent. 
Seymour followed close behind with his arm sup¬ 
porting Moira, who seemed a bit unsteady. 

There was a groan from the pretended half- 
breed when he saw that the lid of the treasure 
chest was thrown back. 

“Since when did the Force take to breaking the 
locks of honest men?” he snarled. 

Instead of answering, Seymour slammed down 
the lid and motioned his old enemy to seat him- 




294 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


self upon the chest. Then he crossed the tent and 
picked up the tell-tale boot. Returning with it, 
he made a comparison. 

“Thought so,” he murmured. 

There was no need for further measuring and 
he tossed the gear under the table. Karmack had 
the biggest feet he had ever seen. By no possi¬ 
bility could one of them have been forced into the 
boot which he had just flung down. 

Knowing nothing of the footprints Seymour had 
found near the scene of Caswell’s killing, Moira 
O’Malley looked on at the comparison of boots 
in mystified silence. Karmack seemed to have a 
better grasp of the reason behind the test. 

“I’m no murderer,” he muttered, glowering at 
his captor. 

“Wait until I get your latest partner, Kluger,” 
said the sergeant. 

Seymour seemed on the verge of enlightening 
Moira when she raised a hand of caution. “Lis¬ 
ten,” she whispered. 

They heard hoof beats hammering into camp. 
Some one on horseback was coming at speed. The 




BOOT AND BOOTY 


295 


sergeant crossed to the tent front and peered out 
between the flaps. 

“Guess we won’t have to go for Kluger, after 
all,” he said, still peering. 

Karmack muttered an oath, his petulance di¬ 
rected against old lady Luck, who gets the credit 
for the best and blame for the worst that happens 
to illogical humans. 

“Bonnie—Bonnemort! Where are you?” The 
deep^throated call came from outside. 

“Where d’you suppose?” Seymour called back 
in a voice that he hoped would pass for the pre¬ 
tended half-breed’s. 

He turned to Moira, quietly directing her to 
crouch behind the treasure chest and keep her 
gun on the ex-factor. 

“No more fighting with fists,—please!” she 
begged. 

“There’s no woman in this man’s case,” he 
whispered, and motioned for silence. 

Phil Brewster walked into the tent a moment 
later, and Seymour realized it was the first time 
he had seen him on foot. The affable freighter 
stepped with a limp. 




296 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“What you sitting there for, you big boob?” 
Brewster put his question to Karmack before 
glancing about the tent. 

“Thinking it over, perhaps.” From a point back 
of Brewster, where he had stood unnoticed, Sey¬ 
mour broke in before the pretender could speak 
for himself. 

Brewster whirled, and with the move his gun 
appeared from handy concealment. But the ser¬ 
geant had expected some such desperate act and 
was ready. His left hand caught the freighter’s 
right at the wrist and swung it upward. Brews¬ 
ter’s bullet let a look of blue sky through the can¬ 
vas roof, while the muzzle of the Mountie’s revol¬ 
ver prodded the ribs of his suspect. The freighter 
saw fit to obey a command to drop his weapon. 

“Sorry I haven’t more bracelets with me,” Sey¬ 
mour said. “Moira, if you’ll look under the 
clothes rack, where I found that boot just now, 
you’ll find a length of rope.” 

“What’s all this about, you high-binder?” Brews¬ 
ter demanded. 

“You remind me—I neglected to introduce my¬ 
self when we met yesterday and the day before. 




BOOT AND BOOTY 


297 


Karmack, there, might tell you that I call myself 
Seymour, sergeant of the Royal Mounted.” 

“But he’s dead!” blurted out Brewster. 

“Not that he knows of,” Seymour assured him 
quietly; “but you have a very good reason for 
thinking so. Now, if you’ll oblige by putting your 
hands behind you—” 

When Brewster obeyed, perforce, the sergeant 
directed Moira to tie the wrists. After he had 
inspected the knots and recovered the fallen gun, 
he suggested that Brewster sit down on one of 
the cots until they were ready to start back to Gold. 
The freighter, in doing so, swung his right leg 
over his left knee. From his seat on the opposite 
cot, Seymour saw on the exposed sole one of the 
peculiar leather-saving metal plates in which he 
was so interested—the one that had made its im¬ 
pression in the soil near the scene of the murder. 
Reaching under the table, he retrieved the spare 
boot he had thrown there and saw that they 
matched in every particular. 

“Just to make everything according to Hoyle, 
Brewster,” the sergeant said, “I now place you 




298 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


under arrest for the murder of Bart Caswell, alias 
Sergeant Seymour.” 

Brewster seemed stunned at the charge. His 
eyes, as if by instinct, avoided Seymour’s steady 
gaze. He looked at the scowling Karmack, start¬ 
ing slightly at his first glimpse of the nickeled 
wristlets the man wore. 

“Who’s the boob now?” snarled Karmack. 
“Leaving tracks with your bad foot for any fool 
Mountie to read!” 

“Shut up, you fool!” A look of fright crossed 
Brewster’s handsome face. For a second he 
seemed about to spring upon Karmack. Then, as 
quickly as it had come, the spasm passed. He 
turned his eyes on Seymour. “If you ever press 
this ridiculous charge,” he said, “I’ll prove it 
false to the jury. I’ve done some freighting for 
the B. & K. outfit, nothing more. Rode in here 
to-day to collect a bill. Down at the canon, Kluger 
passed me on to Bonnemort. I ran into you—and 
trouble.” 

After a moment’s pause, Brewster continued: 
“Say, if you really are Sergeant Seymour, who 




BOOT AND BOOTY 


299 


was the uniformed bird that came to Gold as Bart 
Caswell?” 

“Bart Caswell’s widow is ready to tell the court 
why he killed Ben Tabor in robbing the B. C. X. 
stage of my uniform and papers,” the sergeant 
answered somewhat cryptically. 

“Poor Ruth,” murmured Moira. “She really 
believed.” 

“Well, I’ll be--” Brewster began. 

“Told you Caswell was a crook,” whined Kar- 
mack. “No yellow legs would have let himself 
be caught the way I got him that day up here on 
the creek.” 

Seymour waited for Moira to speak. When she 
came toward him her face wore the bravest smile 
he had ever seen on a woman. 

“What next, pardner?” she asked whimsically. 

“The first step,” he told her, “is to rig up some 
sort of an M. P. seal for that treasure chest I 
broke open.” 

Without ceremony, the sergeant lifted Karmack 
to his feet and ushered him to the left-hand cot. 
From that seat, the disfigured ne’er-do-well might 
glare more conveniently at Brewster. 





300 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“But that chest holds only frog-gold,” Moira 
reminded Seymour. “The Siwashes have all the 
real gold, and it belongs to them.” 

“You don’t really think that a close and crooked 
corporation like Brewster, Kluger and Karmack 
would supply food, dynamite and expert manage¬ 
ment for a bunch of Indians only to take their pay 
in pretty specimens, do you, Moira?” 

She studied the proposition from the new angle 
which his question presented. “It doesn’t seem 
reasonable, but-” 

“It isn’t reasonable,” he interposed, raising the 
lid of the chest that she might feast her eyes upon 
its heaping gray store. “This frog-gold, as your 
father calls it, happens to be platinum—worth six 
times its weight in gold.” 





CHAPTER XXYII 


BRIGHT WITH PROMISE 

With his astonishing declaration of the real 
richer-than-gold wealth of the Glacier Creek 
placers, Seymour turned to Brewster for confirma¬ 
tion. “What is the current quotation on plat¬ 
inum?” he asked. 

But the freighter no longer was affable. “I’m 
no bureau of information,” he growled. 

“Try me,” offered Karmack with a return of 
his old-time effrontery. “Dear eyes, at the pres¬ 
ent time that platinum is worth a hundred and 
fifteen simoleons an ounce—was up to a hundred 
and seventy during the war!” 

“And the purest gold brings a trifle over twenty 
dollars,” the sergeant reminded the girl. “You 
see I was nearly exact.” 

With a quick glance, as if the presence of such 
a store of wealth frightened her, Moira lowered 
the lid. 


301 


302 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


“Then the Glacier Mission Indians are-she 

hesitated. 

“Rich—for them,” he supplied. “What’s more 
the O’Malley claims between the canon mouth and 
the Cheena are heavier with frog-gold than those 
up the creek, or I don’t know my mineralogy. You 
and your father and Miss Ruth will be near-mil¬ 
lionaires.” 

Seymour would not have cared to explain the 
worried look that came unbidden into his eyes, 
had he been taxed with it. Complications fore¬ 
seen were responsible. 

He improvised a flimsy fastening to replace the 
lock he had broken, and pinned over the chest 
crack a sheet of paper on which he had written 
“Officially Sealed, R. Seymour, Sergeant, R. G. 
M. P.” Then he made a young Siwash, picked by 
Moira, vain for life by swearing him in as a spe¬ 
cial constable and placing him on guard at the 
tent door. His instructions were to permit no 
one to pass until Seymour returned, and he was 
entrusted with Brewster’s gun to support his au¬ 
thority. 

Inspection showed that the Siwashes had gone 





BRIGHT WITH PROMISE 


303 


back to work under “king’s orders.” Seymour 
had no thought of telling them how rich they were 
making themselves, until their status was fixed by 
the proper court. Meantime they’d be best off, 
continuing their labor, for “all the gold” allotted 
them by the spoilers. 

With Brewster tied to his saddle and Karmack, 
still handcuffed, on foot, the prisoners were start¬ 
ed down creek under the guns of the sergeant and 
his volunteer aid. Beneath the non-com.’s arm was 
a worn boot for a lame right foot, his prize “Ex¬ 
hibit B.” First honors in the evidence line were 
in the commissioner’s vault back in Ottawa—“Ex¬ 
hibit A,” a pair of fox pelts, one silver and one 
black. Of the three murders he had solved, that 
of poor Oliver O’Malley would always have first 
place in his personal record book. 

On the down creek tramp, Seymour told Moira 
what he knew of the wonder story of platinum. 
Her missionary father had not been the first to 
call this occasional associate of gold a nuisance 
and to throw it away, not knowing what else to do 
with it. In less than a generation the gray metal 
had emerged from the lesser metals, crept past sil- 




304 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


ver and then raced beyond gold into the limelight 
of popularity. Whatever the ultimate fate of the 
ore it was certain to remain a treasure-metal until 
long after Glacier Creek had been mined out. 

For his own satisfaction, as well as hers, he 
outlined the plot against the Indians as he now 
saw it. Phil Brewster, he believed, had recog¬ 
nized platinum in the frog-gold which the Siwashes 
were discarding. The freighter had sent back to 
Montreal for Kluger to direct the harvest. Know¬ 
ing at least something of Karmack’s plight, Kluger 
had brought the Armistice murderer with him as 
an assistant and had posed him as a half-breed 
as part of the disguise. Whether or not the latter 
knew that the father of the youth he had caused 
to he slain in the Arctic lived in the immediate 
vicinity of the platinum bed was a question. At 
any rate, the criminal probably figured that he 
would be safer in a sealed British Columbia canon 
than in the cafes of the city that lately has be¬ 
come the gayest in North America. Brewster un¬ 
doubtedly had been riding guard outside under 
cover of his established freighting business. 

The trio had corralled the Indians on their own 




BRIGHT WITH PROMISE 


305 


claims in the easiest possible way—by giving them 
all the gold that was sluiced, while they took the 
six-times richer platinum. Their discovery that 
Bart Caswell had recognized their precious metal 
had sealed his death warrant. Its execution had 
been prompt, as she knew. He could only hope 
that the official executions which seemed called 
for would not be too long delayed. 

After some persuasion and the reminder that 
Moira was a persistent young person, he sketched 
the steps by which he had walked through the lo¬ 
cal mystery. His conviction that Bart had robbed 
the stage, based on recognition of the uniform, 
had given him a “head start” and had proved a 
lever with the widow Caswell. She had started 
him on a “richer than gold” search. Moira her¬ 
self, with her tip about the frog-gold, had spurred 
him, for he suspected it to be platinum. The 
squaw tale that the Siwashes were getting all the 
gold had helped, and the shaking of a platinum 
nugget from the ore sack had completed his en¬ 
lightenment. As for the black-hearted Karmack, 
whose hair had turned red—well, that was an ex¬ 
cellent piece of dyer’s art, but one Scarlet Seymour 




306 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


would be long forgiving himself for not having 
recognized it as such that memorable night at the 
Venetian Gardens. 

“Do you suppose my being there had anything 
to do-” began Moira. 

“Why, most wonderful girl alive, I particularly 

wanted to get him to close the books with-” He 

interrupted himself at thought of the platinum 
wealth at the mouth of the creek. 

They passed the graveyard diggings without dis¬ 
turbing the Siwashes at their labors. At the tent 
camp in the canon, Seymour surprised Kluger, 
sacking platinum for the get-away which Brewster 
had warned him was imminent. The little man was 
so preoccupied with his delightful task, and in such 
fancied security, that the sergeant had a gun to 
his back before he looked up from the booty. Two 
additional saddle horses were annexed here, which 
Moira and Seymour mounted. 

At the “gate” they surprised one of the two 
hired guards in controversy with O’Malley. Anx¬ 
ious about his daughter, the old missionary was 
trying to talk his way into the gulch. At seeing 
his employers under arrest, the guard resigned 






BRIGHT WITH PROMISE 


307 


on the spot and could not hand over his rifle soon 
enough. On the ride into Gold, the other guard 
was encountered, headed back to his “work.” Sin¬ 
gle-handed, Shan O’Malley made the last neces¬ 
sary capture, adding another prospective witness 
for the king’s case. 

Not until Seymour had gone through the for¬ 
mality of borrowing the town jail from Deputy 
Hardley, and the prisoners were safely immured, 
with the ice-box door really locked, did Moira 
seem to remember her costume. A signal sent from 
her seat in the saddle brought the sergeant out of 
the curious crowd about the log calaboose. 

“I can’t stay to celebrate your victory, Rus¬ 
sell,” she informed him. “I’ve got to get back to 
my tribe—my scrubbing brush. I’ve just realized 
that I must look a—a scandal in this rig. Even 
in Gold, B. C., I have a social standing to main¬ 
tain.” 

Her threatened departure surprised him, left 
him suddenly confused. “Your standing as a 
heroine in Gold couldn’t be disturbed by a blast of 
dynamite after what you’ve done to-day,” he as¬ 
sured her. “And have you forgotten—don’t you 




308 


NEVER FIRE FIRST 


realize what it means that at last I’ve got my man? 
Fve got to go back to Glacier to-night, you know. 
I’d thought of dinner and an official escort home.” 

For a moment she considered, then the eyes 
which he once had likened as being “smudged in 
by a sooty finger,” flashed him all the love in 
their world. 

“Sorry I can’t wait in this rig, Sergeant Scar¬ 
let,” she teased, “but there’s nothing to hinder 
your coming to the mission on Glacier as soon as 
you’re ready.” She started her horse. “But be 
sure,” she called back to him, “he sure not to for¬ 
get to bring my father with you. He’s the only 
parson in these diggings.” 

She had gone before he could thank her; but 
all the platinum on Glacier couldn’t buy from 
him the memory of those recent crowded hours. 

The crowd remembered that he was a member 
of the Force, even if he had momentarily forgot¬ 
ten that fact. They clamored about him for de¬ 
tails of the crime clean-up, few of which they 
would hear from him. There was Deputy Hard- 
ley to be put straight about the B. C. X. hold¬ 
up; and Mrs. Caswell to thank for her “richer 




BRIGHT WITH PROMISE 


309 


than gold” help, and special constables to be se¬ 
lected and sworn for service at the borrowed jail 
and on the creek. Indeed there was much for 
Staff-Sergeant Seymour to do in his new domain, 
but when at last he was free he saw to it that the 
Rev. Shan O’Malley brushed stirrups with him 
all the way to Glacier. 


THE END. 








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